Emily the Empath: Twilight
by AngelaD.Pangie
Summary: Aro, proud leader of the Volturi, is tied to an un-killable, he knows, he's tried, girl by the ghost who made him who he is. So what happens when these three forces, vampire, ghost and Empath, collide? Answer: pandemonium, parties and a lot of damage.
1. The Unwilling Stalker

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter One  
>The Unwilling Stalker<strong>

On an exotic island in the middle of nowhere a couple lay on the otherwise deserted beach. One of the couple was a small woman with short, black hair. The other was a blonde man. They were both strikingly pale and even more strikingly beautiful. Their golden eyes drank in the sight of each other, intimately. For anyone who may have been passing, it would have been awkward. But there was nobody. They made sure of that.

This was a vacation after the tension of the last few weeks. No, scratch that, the tension from the last few _years_. Things had been sorted out. Firstly, they were now certain that none of them was going to accidentally eat Bella and anger Edward. Secondly, they were equally certain Edward was not going to eat Bell and be angry. Thirdly, nobody else wanted to eat Bella and anger the whole lot of them. Fourthly, the Volturi had no reason to try and kill them all… Well, they did, but there was no way they could, now. And to sum it all up, fifthly, everything had worked out well.

Suddenly the black-haired woman's eyes grew glazed. Her partner, used to the sight by now, sighed and waited. He watched as those golden eyes, framed by pale skin and a black halo, scanned the future, distance places and times. The future called on Alice. In turn, she could sometimes ask it favours, sometimes dive into its depths of her own accord, but mostly it was that huge, unstoppable force which determined what she saw. After a while the eyes focused on him again.

"Alice?" Jasper murmured gently, so gently nobody else would have heard. The expression on Alice's face was confusing, as were her raging emotions. They flickered from delight to worry to sadness, and across what felt like the whole emotional spectrum.

"Alice?" he asked again, more concerned this time.

Alice sighed. "Jasper...You remember how we went on this vacation because we thought everything was finally settling down?"

"Yes..."

"We were wrong."

Aro stalked the streets of night-time Volterra, breathing in the scent of the city's night-life. The scents washed over him; the buildings, the people and, most importantly, _the blood_. This was the first time he had been out hunting in a while, and after the disappointment of... recent activities, he could use a distraction.

_To not even acquire _one _new guard...To have shaken up the faith in the Volturi_, he thought to himself, clenching his fist. A crack resounded around him and he looked down at the stone wall he had accidentally taken a chunk out of. There was a brief lull in the sounds around him as the various insects and animals, humans included in that category, paused at the sudden crack, but they soon resumed their normal activities. He was waiting, in an alley, for a human to walk past him. He had been waiting for a while. He'd chosen it because it was a good place to think, and sometimes creatures who'd thought as much as Aro, who had consumed so many of the thoughts of others, needed time to process it all. But it was not a good hunting spot, and he needed that more than quiet.

Finally, Aro decided that the alley was too recluse for anyone to make their way past and walked out into the street. He breathed in the night air, despite not actually needing the oxygen, trying to decide which of the scents he would follow tonight. Aro began walking in the direction of the town square, where he would surely be able to find some gullible tourist or an unknown runaway to feast upon. Suddenly voice rang across the stone walls.

"This is kind of strange," cheerfully mused a human female to herself from where she leant on a wall somewhere behind him. Aro didn't pause. The wind was pushing against him, taking her scent away from him. No matter. There were plenty of courses to choose from.

"I am talking to you, you know." Again, the voice resounded across the stones. This time Aro paused. What drew his curiosity more was that she seemed to feel none of the usual aversion to his kind that humans normally did. He slowly turned, the girl coming into sight. She was of European appearance, with freckles across her nose and shoulder-length brown-blonde hair. She didn't speak with any accent Aro could detect, and usually he could pick up some hint of place. She wasn't afraid, or even nervous. She wasn't stunned by his beauty, as normal humans usually were. She looked cheerful, but was looking at him with her head tilted, a slightly blank look in her eyes. Like he confused her.

"Are you?" he asked mildly, vaguely wondering what the human wanted. She spoke English. _A tourist?_ In which case, dinner may have come to him.

She sighed. "Okay, I can tell this is going to be a little hard on both of us, as it seems you're the less intellectually endowed of the two of us. I'm not particularly comfortable with this arrangement, but hey! Who's complaining. Aside from me." She frowned. "Wait, no, not aside from me… I am complaining! I do not like this! I don't stalk people… Well, I do, but only because it's funny, and only when I feel like it."

Aro glanced behind him. The girl's hazel eyes were focused on a point just over his shoulder. He looked back at her. "Who," he said slowly, not sure whether to be offended or amused. "Are you talking to?"

"Don't interrupt, I'm complaining," she said to him severely, her eyes flicking back over his shoulder. "Yes, I know you think it's necessary, but I do not like… No, this sucks. This has gone beyond sucking. My life has reached a new level of sucking-ness." She paused for emphasis. "It. Really. Sucks."

"Is that so?" Aro asked, stepping towards her. There was nobody around, and this girl would suit his craving for blood just fine. Her babble was both confusing and tiring.

She smiled. "No, I'm just messing with you. I do that a lot. Really, I find it cool that a millennia-old ghost hangs around a vampire of about the same age."

Aro froze. "What?" He looked over his shoulder again. Nothing.

"Well, I know why. She wants to give you a message." The girl smiled, then frowned. "No, don't do that. It's icky… I don't like it when you come inside me… It feels weird… Look, I'm telling you… Damn it, don't ignore me!"

Aro blinked.

Then Emily did too. But when she opened her eyes, she was no longer Emily. The hazel had turned to blue. Her stance had changed, the way she held herself becoming more proud and simultaneously more withheld. Her expression smoothing into lines of tranquil alertness that Aro hadn't seen for a very, very long time, but that nevertheless were as familiar as his own face.

"_Aro, don't turn away from your destiny. I've always told you not to. Don't tell me you've forgotten._"

He knew those eyes.

He knew that voice.

It was her.

"Maya," he whispered softly, almost choking on the word. A mysterious smile flitted across the girl's face -a smile that belonged to another, older being- before she blink, pulled a face. "Did...Did I just do that..._thing_, where I speak, but it's...it's not me?" Aro, otherwise frozen, nodded. "_Bugger_! I _hate _being possessed! Stupid thousand-year-old ghost, GET YOUR OWN BODY!" She abruptly yelled. She looked around, and her face dropped. "Ghost? Here, ghostie ghostie ghostie… No. No, no no… You're not still in my head are you? Damn it, get out of there! I need that noggin for thinking about very important things, like trolling various state leaders on the internet!"

She ran a hand through her hair and sighed, looking at Aro. "You right there, vampy boy? You look a bit pale…" She smiled expectantly. "Do you get it? Pale? Because you're a… Vampire?" She shrugged nonchalantly. "I thought I was funny." She turned, began walking away. "Anyway, got better things to do than catching up with vampy boys, like finding an exorcist. See you… Maybe." The girl turned around, showing again that she had none of the fear Aro's kind usually generated in humans, and began to walk off. He stayed, frozen.

A slight noise from the shadows, made deliberately, drew Aro's attention. Marcus was standing behind him. Aro looked at him, composing his features.

"Yes, Marcus?" Aro replied mildly. "Is something wrong in Volterra?"

"_Ah, so you do not rule alone_," came that over-familiar voice. The girl was paused, ten or so metres away from them both. She slowly turned around and both of the elite vampires saw that her eyes had turned blue.

Marcus, his face void of emotion, held out a hand to Aro. Aro touched his palm to the others. He saw the familiar thoughts, then new ones, the alarm-edged thoughts Marcus meant for him to see. _Your relationship with that human changed in a second. It was an unnatural change. There's something there, Aro. Something which shouldn't be there at all. Some_one.

"I know, Marcus," acknowledged Aro.

The girl was looking confused again, her eye colour the hazel it was before. "That's strange. It's like...I can't walk more than...Well, more than a little while away from you before the ghost takes over and makes me go back to you. Oh, _no_!" she gasped suddenly, alarm and disgust crossing her expression. "A ghost is making me into a stalker! I don't want to be a stalker! Stalkers are creepy! I told you, ghostie, I only stalk if it's funny!"

Marcus looked at Aro. His thoughts were clear in Aro's mind. _If what the human is saying is correct, there may only be one solution. _Aro nodded and looked to the girl.

"I apologise for this. It really isn't the course I would have liked to take. A medium would have been very interesting to keep around."

The girl looked at him in confusion. "What...?" Then she realised. "Oh, you're going to try to kill me?" She seemed amused by the prospect. "Yes, please do."

Aro raised an eyebrow. "You want to die?"

"Oh, yes, dying to." She smiled. "Do you… Get it…" She frowned, looked at Marcus. "Shut up, Marcus, nobody asked you." Marcus said nothing.

Aro had devoured the willing before, but none so… Cheerful. Still, it needed to be done. Maya had chosen the wrong person, if she was really there. Aro moved behind the girl in the blink of an eye. She didn't even have time to wonder where he had gone before Aro reached for her, confident that the mystery was about to be solved and his thirst about to be quenched.

**Auther's Note:**

**This story is transferred from a joint fanfic account (MRegent.2 and Pangie) to mine (). It was the first fanfic I tried alone, while I was still in the thrall of Twilightomania. It's newly edited from when it was on MRegent's page. Hopefully you'll appreciate the alterations to characters, or, if you're a new reader, will enjoy the phenomenon of Emily for the first time.**

**Reviews are always appreciated, and you can find me on twitter by searching for AngelaDonlan.**

**-Angela**


	2. Aro's List

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily The Empath**

**Chapter Two**

**Aro's List**

"So just so we understand each other... You could have picked _any _sort of access tunnel in order to get into the Bat Cave- no, don't deny it, Batman is too awesome to deny- and you picked this. A creepy underground tunnel. Not even a cool, creepy underground tunnel. It's just sort of... Damp. And grimy. You could not hold a welcoming party in here," the girl commented sceptically. "And I fully expect one, by the way, if I am going to enter your Bat Cave." She tripped over something. "You know, if I was a psychologist, I'd be making some serious assumptions."

Aro suppressed the urge to throttle her. He saw Marcus' fingers twitch in the darkness and figured that the other vampire was feeling something along the same lines. "And, while we're on the subject, what's with the random hole in the street? I don't suppose you could have spared the effort to make a door." Aro didn't know how the Cullen boy had managed to keep a human around so long. They. Never. _Stopped_. TALKING! Or maybe it was just this girl.

"A door in the middle of the road would be a little obvious," Aro explained, his tone embodied with a smooth tranquillity he had stopped feeling a few minutes ago. The girl considered this.

"Ah! True," she said triumphantly, as if she'd been the one to point out the obviousness of a door in the ground. She yelped as she tripped over the uneven surface. Again. "I don't suppose you could maybe even this floor out a bit? And it wouldn't kill you to put a carpet in? I think it would really brighten the place up a bit! Of course, you'd also have to fix that water problem first. It's so damp in here! And, to actually brighten the place, you'd have to put some lights in. Hey! Maybe you could do a sort of medieval-style thing, with candle holders and everything!"

"Perhaps," Aro said politely, trying not to think of the many ways he would be able to kill the girl RIGHT THERE AND THEN... But he still remembered what happened the last time he tried to kill her...

...As he had closed in on the girl, he managed to catch her scent for the first time.

It was awful. It was like that of the werewolves -shape-changers, really- that they had smelled when they visited the Cullens, but ten times stronger. And fouler. It was like every disgusting scent known to humans was made just as awful to vampires, condensed into one smell, doubled, doubled again, and put into the blood of one girl. He had reeled back, covering his nose, and gasped, trying to rid himself of the smell. It had truly been awful. Marcus was at his side in a second. To see why Aro was gasping and coughing, despite actually not needing air, he had taken a deep breath of the girl's scent.

He had then disappeared.

Minutes later, just when Aro had regained his composure, Marcus reappeared. He held out his hand to Aro. Aro touched palms with him and received Marco's thoughts. Marco's experience of the girl's scent had been, if possible, even worse than his own. The other vampire's thoughts were disgusted and a little grim. _Aro, do you understand the situation? This human won't, or can't, leave you alone. At this moment, we can't forcibly get rid of her. We can't stay out here. She must come back with us until we can figure out what to do with her. _Aro had nodded glumly. He knew. They both looked at the girl, who was unconcernedly inspecting the ends of her hair.

"I did tell you it was a bad idea," she told them in a sing-song voice. "But did you listen to me?_ Nooooo_."

Now they took her along the descent that led to their secret underground home.

"It really cold in here, you know that?" the girl pointed out, shivering dramatically. "You should install some heaters. What do you think, vampy boy? Aren't you cold?"

"Not particularly." He continued after a brief pause. "Marcus, perhaps you should alert the others of the situation?" Marcus nodded and was gone. Aro envied him for the ease of his escape for a moment before he metaphorically shook himself. He couldn't be that shaken by a simple human.

"Wow. He didn't even say goodbye. If I wasn't freezing my arse off, I would be offended," said the girl cheerfully, despite her words.

"I'm sure you would," said the vampire dryly. They walked along in sweet, blessed silence for a while. Then the girl ruined it.

"When are we going to get there?"

"In a little while."

A few minutes later: "Can you tell me _exactly _when we're going to get there?"

"No."

"Oh. Okay."

A few minutes after that: "You lied when you said a little while. It's already been a little while and we're still not there."

"I meant a little while for me."

"Oh. And how long is that for me?"

"Probably a while longer."

"But I'm cold!" she whined.

"I know. You've said," Aro pointed out. "Many times." Eventually they reached the metal grate through which the Volturi base was located.

"Yay! We're there!" the girl rejoiced.

"Not exactly," Aro told her. The small door was open, probably left that way by Marcus.

"Hm," the girl began as they neared the door. "Bars. Why am I not surprised?" Aro didn't answer, instead holding open the door pointedly. As she walked through she answered her own question. "Because, so far, you've shown an inclination for everything dark and gloomy. I could be making some serious presumptions from this."

"Is that so?" murmured Aro as he shut and locked the metal door behind him.

"Well, this is a bit better," conceded the girl cheerfully at the slightly brighter room beyond the gate. "I don't like the carpet, though. Gray...Hey, you have an elevator! That's cool. I will give you that. It is most definitely cool."

"I'm glad you think so," Aro told the girl as they stepped into the elevator. The elevator ride was, as usual, short. When the doors opened onto the reception area, the girl smiled.

"This is much nicer!" she exclaimed, taking the initiative to throw herself onto one of the couches. "See, I knew you had _some _taste, vampy boy."

The receptionist was smiling without a shred of surprise. "Hello, Aro."

He nodded back. "Gianna. Marcus told you of our situation."

"Yes, he did." Gianna looked towards the girl, and her expression changed from pleasantly polite to that of someone about to kill. If Aro didn't know better, he would have said she was a vampire already. Aro turned his gaze in the direction of the couch the girl was on and immediately saw the problem. The girl was shedding her mucky, dirty shoes on Gianna's couch. She had gained yet another enemy.

Despite all this, Aro was slightly impressed. Not even ten seconds after being see by Gianna and the girl had already annoyed her. Surely that was some kind of record.

"Get your shoes off my couch," Gianna ordered. Her tone added 'or die'. The girl, obeying and order for the first time since Aro had met her, looked at Gianna's face and, very carefully, put her shoes on the floor. "Thank you," the receptionist said coldly. Aro wondered why the girl obeyed the human receptionist but not the vampire. He decided that it was simply another thing to add on the long, ever-growing list in his head titled ,'Why The Human Girl Following Me Around Is Insane'.

"Come through here," he said to the human. She jumped up.

"Where are we going now?" she asked brightly, ignoring the receptionists' look. Aro indicated the wooden door which led to the hallways inside the Volturi base. They walked through together, the lavish carpet and gold decorations seeming to welcome them.

"Wow!" the girl said, impressed. "This place gets nicer and nicer! It starts off crap and becomes decent. Like you. You're starting off a bit of a douchebag, but I'm sure you'll be nice later, vampy boy."

Another note on Aro's mental list. She insulted him at regular intervals. Nobody insulted him. Nobody had done in... A longer time than Aro cared to remember. He could have tried, but that would have brought back memories of humility and poverty that he had no wish to recall.

"How come it only gets nicer here?" asked the girl.

"If a human accidentally found their way to the tunnel, it would be quite unusual to find carpets where tunnels should be," he told her, feeling tired for the first time in...A very long time. The girl's presence was mentally wearing him out. They walked past a series of doors, the girl keeping up a constant string of babble about topics selected at random. He turned out somewhere in the middle of the story of how she snorted a fly in a British winter.

Eventually they came to a certain door. Up until that point, they had not come across a single other vampire. Aro wondered how many vampires there would be in the room. Surely most of them would be out hunting? He had no more time for contemplation or reserve. Hopefully the others had come up with a way to rid him of his inhumanly irritating human.

"Wait," said the girl, frowning a little. Aro paused. If his heart were still beating, a vein would have been throbbing at his temple. "I'm forgetting something..." She looked down at her bare feet. "Would you look at that!" she exclaimed, thrusting a grimy foot in Aro's general direction with a kind of perplexed delight. "I've lost my shoes! Hm...They must be still at the reception...Oh, never mind. It doesn't matter."

Aro added it to his list of why the girl was insane and pushed open the door.


	3. Heidi's Breaking Point

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Three**

Heidi's Breaking Point

"…This is it?" the girl asked disdainfully as they entered the castle turret. "I had just began to think that you did have some taste, then you go and show me _this_. " Aro entered behind her, shutting the door. In the perfect silence he led her to the centre of the room. The eyes of the present Volturi followed the pair. Aro was lucky in the regard that there weren't many. He'd been correct in assuming that almost everyone was out hunting. The only vampires present were Marcus, who had gone ahead to warn the others of the girl's presence, Heidi, her purple contact lenses absent, Caius, Jane and Alec, the latter four of which were glaring at the girl in disgust. The girl in question was observing the room with an innocent appearance, probably planning her next annoying comment.

"_That _is what's causing all this trouble?" asked Heidi with disdain. "Aro, I did think you had some taste." The words were meant to offend the girl. Instead they seemed to egg her on. The girl's head turned around, lighting-quick, to look at Heidi. She looked her up and down, assessing her mini skirt and clingy top.

"Oh, look!" cried the girl joyfully, grinning at Heidi. "It's everyone's favourite slut. I mean, whore. I mean, harlot. I mean, whorey slutmuffin. I mean...Sorry, I'm not making a very good impression here, am I?"

Heidi was giving the girl a stony glare. Jane and Alec were looking at the girl with identical expressions of confusion. "Aro? Why is she not dead?" asked Jane.

"Do you want me to show you-" began the girl, taking a little pocket knife out and preparing to cut the skin of her palm.

"No." shot Aro so quickly that everyone except Marcus turned to look at him. "That would be a bad idea." Thankfully, the girl slid the knife back into a pocket. Aro began to answer to unasked question in the other Volturi's eyes. "The human's blood has a very..._unique _smell. To put it plainly, Heidi, it is the worst smell I have ever has the misfortune of smelling, and I think Marcus would say the same." Marcus gave a quick nod.

"Then why do you not leave her somewhere? If her smell is so bad, why did you let her into our sanctuary?" asked Heidi through stiff lips, still irritated. The girl seemed to pick up on this.

"Aw, has someone got a case of the grumpy-wumpies?" she asked in a baby voice. Heidi snarled at her. "Someone _does _have a case of the grumpy-wumpies. I think Heidi-Weidi needs a time-out."

"Yes, why don't you just leave her somewhere?" asked Caius, completely ignoring the human.

The girl blinked. Her eye colour changed as they watched, the pigments altering in a way that human eyes were never meant to do, going from hazel to blue.

"What's _this_?" hissed Alex softly.

"_I am the reason why the girl who's body I must use to communicate can not leave Aro_," issued a voice which carried the years the way the faces of the elderly did, sounding as it should come from a creased face, one whose owner had become wise with the many, many years. Aro felt that feeling again, the one he had gotten in the alley. The feeling that the part of the girl that was the girl had been forced out by something older and much more powerful than she.

"Aro? What is going on?" asked Alec's sister. Aro looked at her, and met the eyes of all of the vampires in the turret, all of whom were looking like they were waiting for his answer.

"_I believe I can answer that_," said that familiar voice. "_My name is Maya. Once, a very, very long time ago, I was Aro's mentor. I saw his potential and made it my life's duty to better him in every way I could. Unfortunately, I died before that could be accomplished. I have been trying to accomplish in death what I could not accomplish in life for...A longer time than could be said. But finally, I think I have found the way_."

"Aro? Is this true?" Caius asked sharply.

Aro nodded. "I'm afraid it is."

"And how is a human meant to 'better' Aro?" continued Caius, irritated by the disturbing urge he had to assume a defensive position when he listened to that old, old voice coming from the young face. "And how exactly do you mean to make us keep her here?"

Maya looked at Caius penetratingly. "_I mean to make this girl unable to leave you by taking over every time she and Aro try to part try to part, Caius._" Caius looked only a little ruffled by the use of his name before he gave it. She spoke to him like an old acquaintance. Like she'd been watching them.

"You didn't answer my first question," he pointed out.

Maya smiled a smile filled with more wisdom than mirth. "_What could a human possibly do to change a vampire? No, Caius. This body is not that of a human. But that is not my story to tell." _Without another word the blue vanished, melting like snow dropping into hot, green-brown tea. She looked up to see six vampires looking at her in astonishment.

"What I miss -oh. Wait. Don't tell me. Little Miss I-Can-Take-Over-Random-People's-Body-And-I-Don't-Even-Have-To-Ask showed up again?" she snorted. "Typical. She disappears half the time and, the other half, she thinks she can just waltz in here and-"

"I see why this is a problem," Alec interrupted thoughtfully.

"Excuse me!" exclaimed the girl, outraged. "I was in mid-rant! You do not interrupt me when I-"

"One which must be rectified," agreed Jane.

"Hey-"

"But how can we-" began Alec.

"I AM STILL HERE, YOU KNOW!" yelled the girl, jumping up and down while waving her arms around crazily.

"Unfortunately, we can see that," snapped Heidi, having taken an obviously dislike to the girl.

"You deeply wound me," lied the girl.

"If only I could."

"What I wish to know," lightly broke in Aro, looking at the girl thoughtfully. "Is, if you aren't human, what are you?"

"Don't you mean who am I? You don't even know my name yes. It's very rude not to ask someone their name, just jumping into asking them what they are instead." She folders her arms and tilted up her chin.

"What's your name?" Aro asked calmly.

"I'm glad you asked!" she said, all trace of being offended vanishing under her smile. "My name's Emily. Nice to meet you."

"And, Emily," Aro continued. "What are you?"

"I'm an Empath. Don't ask what exactly that is, because I haven't the foggiest."

"An 'Empath'?" asked Aro, trying the word out.

"That's me. You see, if we'd introduced each other properly before, this would have gone much smoother. Manners are the key, Aro, manners are the key. To what? Who cares!" She looked around, hands on her hips. "And to think I don't even know your names. Well, I know Heidi the Whore's name because Aro said it-"

"That's it!" snarled Heidi fiercely. "Jane, would you show this Empath why the Volturi are both respected and feared?"

"Gladly," Jane snarled. Emily had been infuriating her too. Jane looked at Emily for a moment, and Aro knew that, in a few moments, Emily would be in a world of hurt.

Emily the Empath smiled a secret smile.

**Author's Note:**

**Just wanted to leave a quick note here; if you want to know about books I am or have written, go to my homepage and have a look. From now I'll update it whenever something important happens.**

**Peace and love,**

**-Angela**


	4. How to Infuriate Vampires

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Four**

How to Infuriate Vampires

Aro, Alec, Heidi, Marcus, and Jane watched Emily, expecting her to being screaming, writhing in pain.

Any second now...

"It's cold in here. Windy." Emily finally announced. "Have you ever thought of installing heaters?"

"Why aren't you screaming,' snarled Jane through tight lips.

"It's not _that _cold."

"I mean in pain."

"Why would I be in pain? Again, it's not that cold."

"Because I'm putting every power I have into hurting you."

Emily looked hurt. Emotionally, that is, not through Jane's powers. "Why? What have I done?"

They all looked at her.

"Can we at least _try _to kill her?" Caius asked eventually. "_Please_?"

"Not through any means of blood shed."

"How about if we threw her off a cliff?"

"No, thanks," interrupted Emily. "I don't like cliffs."

"The blood would poison the ocean."

Emily gave a little gasp. "It's not _that _bad."

"Drowning?" suggested Heidi maliciously.

"Suffocation?" Alec chimed in.

"Speaking of poison… " murmured Caius.

"Can I interrupt?" asked Emily.

"No," Heidi snapped sharply.

"I'm feeling a lot of negativity here," she continued on, heedless of Heidi's input. "I suggest we all sit down and talk about our problems." They all looked at her again.

"You're our problem," Caius told her. "And we're already talking about how to _delete _you."

"'Delete'?" quoted Emily. "What am I, a computer virus? Or are you just a robot?" Jane had been frozen, looking at her with a snarl. Suddenly she spoke.

"Why couldn't my powers affect you?" she said.

"That's what my being an Empath means," Emily began. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Aro noticed that this was the first time she had given them a straight answer. "Any talents you have, I have too."

"What do you mean?" asked Jane suspiciously.

Emily looked straight at her. She wasn't smiling any more. That was when Jane began screaming. She folded in on herself. Alec was at her shoulder. He reached out to her but paused, looking at Emily. An expression of hate flickered across his face before he disappeared, going faster than Emily could see, until he stood behind the Empath. He leaned in, teeth bared, and was ready to bite when he smelled Emily's skin. Less than a second later he was on the other side of the room, gasping and coughing, even though he didn't actually need to breath.

"H-horrible!" he gasped. The whole thing had taken only a few seconds.

"_That's _what I mean," Emily said softly, only audible over Jane's screams because of the vampire's advanced hearing. Jane stopped abruptly. "Anything you can do, I can do too."

"Interesting," murmured Aro, feeling a flicker of curiosity. "How long do you possess these abilities?"

"It differs," answered Emily. "For some powers I have for ever, like the whole ghost-seeing-thing. Others I only have while I'm near to the person who originally has the powers."

"And you get them from only a few minutes' proximity to the original owner of the power?" Aro inquired.

"Sometimes. Some powers I get straight away. Some I have to spend heaps of time with the original before I get it."

"Interesting,' Aro said again. Marcus appeared at his shoulder, holding out a palm. Aro touched his palm's with the other vampire's.

_What is going to happen when the others get here?_ asked Marcus. _And how long are we keeping the Empath?_ Aro didn't answer, just slipped his palm free from Marcus'.

"What _are _we going to do with you?" he said, more to himself, while looking at Emily. Marcus walked out of the room silently. Aro vaguely wondered where he was going, but it was without any real curiosity. That part of his brain was focused on Emily.

"I'm not the mind reader. Well, maybe I am by now." She smiled, held up her hand. "Want to try, vampy boy? It'd be like mind-warp!"

"Aro, the others are going to be here soon," warned Heidi. "We need to decide what we're going to do with her. Or _to _her." She added in an undertone.

"_To her'?" _a voice familiar to them all quoted from the door. "Oh, I doubt you can do anything _to _Emily." They had been too occupied with the discussion to notice Alice and Jasper entering, Marcus behind them. Alice had just spoken and her voice drew an immediate reaction from the other four. Alec and Jane snarled at her, almost as one person. Heidi half-crouched, preparing to attack. Caius said, in a soft, dangerous tone, "what are _they _doing here?" It was a question Aro wouldn't have minded an answer to. But before one could be gained, Emily let out a high-pitched squeal of delight that was too school-girl like not to wince at.

"ALICE!" she squealed, enveloping the vampire in a bear hug. Alice's tranquil mask slipped for a moment and an expression of delight took its place. They hugged, twirling each other around as they laughed in delight.

"What are you _doing _here?" began Emily.

"Looking for you -phew!" Alice's nose wrinkled as he stepped back a little, wincing. "Argh. Aah. Egh. I'd -phew- I'd forgotten why I like to keep you at arms length." She cleared her nose a little.

"Because otherwise you'd be overwhelmed by my awesomeness?"

"Obviously that's it," Alice laughed. Emily caught sight of Jasper.

"Jasper!" she cried out joyfully.

"It is a pleasure to meet-" began Jasper. He was interrupted by Emily exuberantly throwing herself onto Jasper, giving him a hug just as forceful as the one she had given Alice. Alice shook her head, smiling with slight exasperation. Emily was the only person she knew who could be as enthusiastic about everything as she, herself, was.

"You two know her?" asked Heidi distastefully.

"Yes," Alice nodded.

"No," Jasper replied, looking a little stunned and confused as Emily stopped twirling him around. "I have never -urgh." He caught Emily's scent and flinched, trying to discretely cover his mouth. Emily, who seemed completely oblivious of Jasper's predicament, stepped between the two Cullen's, an arm around each.

"They're my buddies!" she said cheerfully. Even Alice looked a little embarrassed at this. It seemed to occur to Emily, for the first time, that she'd never met Jasper before. She looked at him. "You're my buddy, aren't you?"

"Sure," conceded Jasper before going back to covering his nose and mouth, this time with both hands.

"How can you stand to be close to that _stench_?" Heidi asked Jane in disbelief.

"You get used to it," replied the tiny vampire. At their incredulous stares, she modified her reply. "Well, sort of."

"Really?" asked Jane dryly, no doubt still sore that this was yet another human who she couldn't hurt.

Alice dropped her eyes. "No. I just try to breathe as little as possible."

"Oh." They all said as one, except Marcus, who held his palm out to Aro. When they were mentally connected, Marcus focused on a particular memory and Aro watched it.

_Marcus felt a flicker of a familiar relationship. He walked out just as Emily replied. He made his way to the gate, where Alice and Jasper were waiting._

_"We know her. I think I may be able to help." Alice had said without needing any prompting from him. There was no need to ask who the 'her' was. He had let her in._

Aro nodded. If the two thought they could get rid of the girl, he would happily let them try. And, perhaps, he could wear down their resolution not to become one of the Volturi. It was an opportunity he would probably never be able to take, but that just made it all the more attractive. But one problem at a time.

"Why have we all gone silent?" asked Emily in bewilderment.

"You truly think you are able to help?" Aro asked Jane.

"I think I may be able to, yes," answered Alice slowly. Aro got the feeling that she was choosing her words carefully. He felt a flicker of suspicion. "How were you going to deal with the situation?"

"Hey!" exclaimed Emily, offended. She had a far-away look in her eye that faded as they watched. "I just got a vision of someone poisoning me."

"So did I," said Heidi, but she had a peaceful look that said she was day-dreaming.

"That's just mean!" complained Emily. "I'm very offended by that!"

Heidi's peaceful expression vanished. "And I care?"

"Heidi, you are hurting my feelings!"

"And I would very much prefer to hurt a lot more than that."

"What did I ever do to you?"

"Existed."

Abruptly, Alice interrupted them. "We have a problem." Every eye except that of the Cullens' went to Emily.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "I am not a problem!" There was silence. Emily decided to sulk.

"The other Volturi..." Alice said began. "They're coming back."


	5. Emily Clears a Room

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Five**

Emily Clears the Room

"Someone must have seen you escorting Emily here," continued Alice. "They've gathered everyone they can find and will bring them here in a few minutes."

"Yay, more friends!" clapped Emily cheerfully.

"We aren't your friends," snapped Heidi.

"Of course you are. You just don't know it yet."

"THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE!" Heidi stopped, took a breath that she didn't technically need. She had to remain calm. She was allowing the human – or Empath, or whatever, to get under her skin. She needed to-

"YOU DON'T MAKE SENSE!" happily screamed Emily in reply. Then she grinned. "But that's okay, Heidi, because I know you secretly love me."

Neither Alice nor Jasper would ever forget the priceless image of Heidi being rendered speechless. Heidi thought a rude word and decided she was going to kill the Empath soon as possible.

"If we could return to the..." Caius glared at Emily. "_Problem _at hand?"

"Why is everyone so mean today?" Emily asked innocently. They stared at her.

"Why are you so _annoying _today?" snapped Heidi.

"She's probably always like that," said Jane in the same tone, still annoyed that her powers didn't work on the Empath.

"Maybe if we gag her..." began Caius meanly.

"Would you risk that smell?" Alec asked him, looking pale. Being a vampire, that meant that if it was a contest between him and paper, he would win the Trophy of Paleness.

"...No," said Caius miserably. The idea of gagging her had made him feel so happy, too.

Emily was looking sulky. "That's it, I'm not speaking to any of you again."

"Hallelujah."

Emily glared at Heidi, who had just spoken, and then smiled sweetly. "Except you, Heidi. Because we're such good friends I'll make an exception, just for you."

Heidi was suddenly holding a sharp rock. The crack of her snapping it from the wall reached their ears at the same time.

The Empath looked at the hole in the wall that had not been there a moment ago. "You know, there's no call for you to wreck the building. It's already dreary enough without being a ruin as well."

Heidi smiled, a little dreamily, as she tossed the sharp rock from hand to hand. She didn't reply. Aro presumed she was dreaming of beating the Empath to death with the rock. It was he was thinking of as well.

Suddenly Gianna appeared at the door. "Excuse me?" she asked smoothly, ignoring Emily.

"Yes?" Emily said anyway.

"Yes, Gianna?" Aro answered.

"The others are all here. They are unsure whether they should enter or not, knowing what little they do of the situation," she summarised. Aro thought about it for a moment and realised they probably thought it was another Bella situation, only, this time, it was Aro who was playing the part Edward had. He hated to say it, but even that would have been preferable to this.

"We should let them in, Master," Heidi said to Aro.

"I think so too!" rejoiced Emily.

"Your opinion doesn't matter."

"That's so mean!"

"Good."

"Why should we let them in?" frowned Alec.

"Because," interrupted Jane with a malicious grin. "They may think of a solution everyone can agree with."

"Everyone except her," Heidi said as she nodded to Emily. "Which means they may be able to find a way to kill her. Preferably painfully."

"Hey!" Emily protested.

"I agree," Caius said.

"Yes, so do I," Alec told them.

Marcus nodded his assent.

"It won't work, you know," Alice said.

"Why? Can you see what will happen?" asked Aro.

"Not right now, no."

"Then how do you know?"

Alice looked at him. "Because nothing can get rid of Emily, if she doesn't want to go. Besides, from what I've seen, it's not that she won't, it's that she can't."

"Which means she may leave if you find a way to release her from the ghost," Jasper told them calmly. He seemed to have gotten over being hugged by Emily now.

"No, I won't."

"You won't?" Aro asked carefully. The entire room had frozen.

"No." Emily remained the picture of innocence. "I like annoying you too much."

Heidi raised the rock. Surprisingly, it was Alec who restrained her. "Heidi, the smell!" She lowered it.

"And," continued Emily, her smile fading a little. "I've never been in the company of so many people with powers before. I want to try them all out, and obviously the best people to try them out on will be vampires."

"Why is that?" asked Aro, a voice of sanity.

"Because you can't die. Well, you can, but I promise Ill be careful so you won't!" promised Emily with her happy smile back on her face again.

"_You'll _be careful?" Caius snapped arrogantly. "You're a human!"

"Empath."

"You're still a human!" he exclaimed. "Just with strange powers." Emily smiled, only this time it wasn't happy.

"I'm not," she replied in a silky voice. Before, the other vampires had sounded dangerous. Now the warning sign in Emily's tone was unmistakable. "Don't forget it, either."

"Emily," reprimanded Alice. Emily looked at her, a little startled, and suddenly she was all smiles again.

"Well, are you going to let them in or not?" she asked cheerfully. "I think Gianna wants to get back to her table so she can sit there and be useless some more."

Gianna looked at her with eyes like daggers. She held up her hands. In them she held the mucky pair of shoes Emily had accidentally left in the reception. "Theseare yours."

"My shoes!" she exclaimed joyfully as she took them and put them on. "I'd forgotten about them. Wow, Gianna, you're actually not that useless."

Gianna decided not to sink to Emily's level. She turned to Aro. "Master Aro?"

"Yes, let them in," he said. Caius, who had been silent up until that point, was now behind Aro. He held out his hand. Curious, Aro touched his palm, and saw Caius's memory of what had just happened.

_"You're a human!" he exclaimed._

_Emily looked at him, and he felt like a human again, no, like a human child. He felt as if she could see right through him, could stomp of his life, could make him die if she wanted. "I'm not. Don't forget it, either."_

_He wouldn't._

_"Emily," reprimanded Alice, and the look was gone._

Aro inclined his head, acknowledging what he ad seen with his own, or rather, Caius's, eyes. Emily was certainly no human.

The other vampires began filtering into the room warily. Demetri and Felix were at the front, their red eyes wary. They all came inside in complete silence. They observed the room, the tension, to way Heidi clutched the rock in her hand, which both Alec and Jane now held down. The general expression changed to one of confusion eventually Felix spoke up.

"Aro? We had heard you took a human girl into Volterra, but I didn't believe you would." He looked at Emily, clearly disgusted. "I do not think it would be too forward of me to ask for an explanation."

"Of course not," Aro permitted. "This is-"

"Hi, I'm Emily," Emily introduced herself cheerfully. "I'm an Empath."

"I don't believe I asked you," Felix told her coolly.

"This is Emily the Empath," butted in Jane. "And we cannot kill her."

This got their attention. "Why not?" asked Demetri.

"Because her blood is..." Jane paused, glanced at Alec. They had, by this time, let go of Heidi's arm.

"Awful," Alec told them gloomily. "It is the single worst stench on this planet. I don't believe we could endure it if her blood was spilt here."

"It can't be that bad!"

"It is."

Emily was pouting. "All this talk of how much I stink makes me really want a bar of soap."

"Will you go away if we give you some?" asked Heidi half-heartedly, knowing the answer.

"You know I can't."

"Why not?" That was Felix.

"Because," Aro jumped into the conversation. "She is possessed by a ghost of someone I knew a very long time ago. When ever I try to leave her, it takes control of her and makes the Empath go after me."

Felix looked at him, confused. "Why did you not simply run away?"

"Because I would run after him," Emily smiled cheerfully. Aro was relieved she had interrupted. He didn't want to admit that running away was something he had simply not considered. He hadn't needed or even wanted to run away in… Well, that part of his life had ended long ago, so it was no use bringing it up, even in his own head.

"Child," snorted Felix. "You have no idea how fast our kind can run."

"I do. It's how fast I can."

"What?"

"I am an Empath," she explained. "Anything you can do, so can I." This caused mutters to spread around the room.

"Prove it," challenged Demetri.

Heidi suddenly lit up. "I can do that!" Before any of them could move of say anything, she hurled the rock at Emily as fast and hard as she possibly could.

Alice sighed, as she saw what would happen next a moment before she did. Emily would look at the rock, her hazel eyes determined. She would raise her hand. As she did this she would grimace, as if in extreme pain, and her hand would become as pale and stony as any of the vampire's skin. She would draw back her hand, as if to back-hand an annoying fly and, just as the rock came in view, would swat it away to the other side of the room so hard that it would crack into pieces.

A moment later all that she saw came to happen. Almost everyone's eyes followed the rock and only Alice and Aro watched Emily's hand as it faded back into that of a human. They looked up, accidentally meeting each other's eyes. Aro tilted his head curiously. Emily's eyes were filled with pain. She blinked and it was gone, hidden away behind a light, happy smiled. Aro wondered if she was really as stupid as she seemed. But that just depressed him. If she wasn't, it would mean they were being led around.

Heidi looked distraught. "But...You...You can't do that!"

Emily looked at her almost in pity. "Honey, I just did."

"I still don't believe her blood can be so foul as it cannot be drained from her body," snapped Felix. All the vampires looked shaken by what Emily had just done.

"Well, I'll show you, then," Emily said as she took out her little knife again, the blade glinting in the semi-light.

"No!" protested Aro, Alec, Alice and Jasper as one.

"No, let her," Demetri challenged. Without further ado, Emily slit the skin on her left palm. Like an explosion of foul wind, the scent of her blood exploded out. It was worse than it had been when hidden beneath the skin. It was fouler than anything humanly possible.

Within seconds, all the vampires had left the room, rushed out of the hallway and crowded into the reception, when an astonished Gianna almost had a heart attack at seeing the crowd of panicked vampires gasping words such as "awful" and "foul" rush into the room.

"So, what do you...Oh," Emily said in surprise as she looked at the now empty room she occupied. "Where did everyone go?" She closed her fist, frowned for a moment, and opened it again. The scratch was gone. She looked at the knife and, within a second, the blood on it was gone, as if had never been. She felt a kind of presence behind her eyes. "Hello, Maya. That hurt a bit… Not the cut, although that did sting, but the transformation… I hate doing that. It always hurts. So when can we stop playing this little game of yours and cut to the chase?"

_Not yet_.

"Maya… This is going to be hard. This is going to be almost impossible to do for me."

_You will do it. You have to_.

Emily sighed. "As long as I get a killer party later."

_Aro_, that other entity reminded Emily.

"I'm going," Emily conceded as she stepped towards to door. She paused, looked at the empty room, and grinned wickedly. "Still, you must admit, I sure can clear a room."

The ghost smiled. _I can see that._


	6. Emily Breaks Some Vampires

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Six**

Emily Breaks Some Vampires

Everyone was crowded in the reception. It wasn't a comfortable arrangement, but anything was better than returning to that...

Smell was too vague a word.

Scent too happy.

_Stench _was closer, but still couldn't come anywhere near expressing the level of almost sadistic horror that it should have conveyed.

_And_, Aro thought a little sadly. _I am thinking that as an unimaginably old vampire who leads a group of largely bloodthirsty killers who are proud of it. If anyone would know what horror is, it would be me. This stench is beyond anything even _I _could think of_.

Aro glanced around, thinking that it was odd to see a roomful of being who didn't need air gasping and coughing. It had begun when that human had cut herself, releasing an explosion of toxic fumes which had cleared the room. Fortunately, he had had the foresight to run while he had the chance, which meant that he didn't get the full blast.

Unfortunately, the smell was pungently strong enough that the slight trace which had followed the vampires out of the room was enough to make him want to go throttle the girl.

The human. Not girl, the human. Not even human, the Empath.

Alice and Jasper clung to each other, gasping as much as the rest of them. Despite having come into contact with the girl previously (in Alice's case), neither seemed to have any sort of immunity against the smell.

This was bad.

It meant that no matter how much time Aro spent with the Empath, which was beginning to look as if would be a lot, the stench would never be muted.

"Hello!" called a voice from the corridor, though the speaker (or rather yeller) knew very well that a voice of ordinary volume was enough.

"She's coming," pointed out Alec needlessly.

"What do we do?" asked Felix in tones of urgency.

"What can we do?" asked Aro mildly.

"Kill her."

"Maim her."

"Torture her slowly and painfully." That last one was Heidi. Aro mentally sighed.

"We cannot," he pointed out.

"IIIIIIIIIIIIII'm cooooooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiing," yelled Emily. "Aro, are you there? I wouldn't ask but Little Miss Thinks-She-Can-Take-Over-My-Body-Without-Asking-First _I can take over your body without asking first_ YOU ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS CONVERSATION _I'm included in whichever conversation I choose and you would do well to remember it_ ...Shut up. I'm ignoring you_ I do not think you can_ LALALA I'M IGNORING YOU _I apologize, are you trying for the award for being unbelievably childish?_ Oh, honey, if there was an award like that, I'd have three of them..._Somehow I don't doubt it._"

The stream of babble had taken a decidedly odd turn.

"Um...Emily?" asked Alice. Emily had apparently stopped walking up the corridor when she was having the...monologue? Duologue? "Maybe that is an argument better had in silence."

"_I agree_ NO ONE ASKED YOU!"

"And, by silence, I mean not out loud."

"_You would do well to heed her _again, NO ONE ASKED YOUR OPINION!"

"By not out loud, I mean...Mentally."

"You think I want her in my head- OH, CRAP! NOW SHE IS! Wait, what did you call my mother? _You would rather speak like this?_ YES! _and, for curiosity's sake, where did 'mother' some from? I simply asked if you would like me to speak in your head._"

"She has a mother?" muttered Jane. "I presumed she had spawned from the pit of the devil."

Somehow, coming from a child-like vampire who would happily inspire excruciating pain in anyone and everyone who she felt like it, the statement was mildly ridiculous.

"This is getting ridiculous," muttered Caius darkly, echoing Aro's thought.

"What do you mean 'getting'?" asked Jane rhetorically just as Emily walked in.

"GET BACK!" yelled Heidi ferociously, jumping back herself. "YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!"

"Hey, it's my buddy Heidi!"

"I AM NOT YOUR BUDDY!"

"My friend! My homey!"

"I AM NOT...your...what?"

"My pally Mc Pal Pal who will help me paint my toenails and look through girly magazines and...other...friendship...stuff..."

Even though she didn't need to Heidi blinked. "You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?"

Emily's face assumed an expression of peaceful ignorance. "I like ice cream. Do you like ice cream?"

"I don't eat."

The Empath looked hurt. "So you don't like ice cream? But...how can you be my friend if you don't like ice cream?"

Heidi saw a golden, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And, since she was dead, it made the opportunity even bigger. "Oh, dear, I don't like ice cream...You can't be friends with someone who doesn't like ice cream...So I suppose...We can't be friends. We may even have to...separate. To make the break in friendship easier."

A smile replaced the hurt expression. "Don't be silly! Of course we can overcome our differences-"

"YouhavenoideahowmuchIhateyou."

"_Actually she does. She just ignores it _ACK! WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU? BUGGER OFF CREEPY MIND-LADY!"

It had been _odd _and _disturbing _hearing the...conversation when they (she? It_?) _had been out of sight. It had sent chills down Aro's spine, and he was a being who inspired fear in immortal beings.

But now?

Now they were seeing two completely different personalities. It wasn't just that the voice changed. It wasn't just that the colour of the eyes changed.

It was that the girl's whole being altered. Her posture changed to one of dignity and quiet elegance. Her expression altered to that spine-chillingly familiar one that Aro, even after year, _centuries _of not seeing, recognized in a...

Well, he couldn't exactly say _heartbeat_.

But he recognized it straight away.

And the process was done and gone in a handful of moments.

Several times over.

It was like seeing a crazy person talking to themselves...Or, in this case, _them_selves.

In fact, it may have been better to be talking to a crazy person. Someone who was insane would have been perfectly fine. In fact, Aro had come across many such insane people. It was better dealing with insane people. He just threw them off the nearest cliff or into the nearest wall if they tried to expose him (insanity annoyingly rendered the human species more perceptive to his kind than sane people) or just walked past if they didn't.

But this? A being who seemed able to defeat them all...And, even worse, annoy them all that they would not be able to get rid of?

That made Aro understand why the Cullen boy had sought suicide over a lesser species.

Though he had done it for different reasons that the ones Aro was thinking of.

"Okay!" Alice said sharply. Emily looked around. Or rather Emily and Maya looked around. There was a strange moment where it was clear that they had possession of the body at the same time. An extremely _creepy _moment where each eye was a different colour and the face was oddly twisted in a way to accommodate two different personalities at one time.

Jane shuddered a little. "Please don't do that," she said in a tiny voice. Aro felt like staring at the female vampire. She sounded..._scared _of the Empath. But that couldn't be...

"Yes, Alice, who likes ice cream?" replied Emily in a happy voice.

...On second thought, Aro decided that fear was not irrational.

After a history with Emily, Alice knew her better than anyone else in the room, other than possibly Emily herself, or maybe the entity who seemed to be able to take over Emily at will and even delve into her mind. This meant that she knew the futility of arguing with her and wisely decided not to argue with the presumption that she enjoyed the frozen confectionery which she didn't think she'd ever even tasted. "Maybe you should focus on the problem at hand..."

"And what problem is that?" asked Emily innocently.

"Has the last hour been erased from your thoughts?" asked Heidi. "You know, the one where you _stalk _our leader-"

"No choice in that, remember?"

"- be incredibly annoying-"

"_That _I have a choice in."

"-_steal _our talents-"

"I don't _steal _them."

"-POLLUTE our home-"

"'Pollute' is a harsh word..." Emily thought about it. "Though probably accurate."

"And, worst of all, the part where YOU SEEM TO BE ENJOYING EVERRY MINUTE!"

Emily thought this over, then chuckled. "Actually, that's true."

Heidi gave her a death glare.

"You should take a holiday. You seem stressed. I hear Tasmania is nice this time of year."

"It's the middle of winter there," informed Alice.

"Like I said, I hear Australia is nice this time of year."

"Tasmania is a part of Australia."

"I hear South Africa is nice."

"Winter."

Emily gave Alice a look. "You really aren't helping."

"You're the one who keeps choosing places in the Southern hemisphere!"

"Well...It's their fault..." said Emily, rapidly losing steam as the tiny, tortured, withered part of her conversation which was called 'logic' died a horrible, horrible death. "For...being...In the...South...Anyway, that's not the point! The point is that we have to help Heidi-"

"Master, permission to leave before I do something we may all regret?" Heidi asked Aro politely. "Like hitting the...thing against the wall."

There was no question of who 'the thing' was.

"I am curious as to why that would cause us all regret," stated Alec.

"Because she would no doubt assume the texture of our skin so that I would just be damaging the building."

"Again," piped up Emily.

"Ah," said Alec.

"Either that or she wouldn't be able to adept our skin texture in time." Heidi wasn't looking very sad at the thought. That is, before she continued, where she began looking very sad, and a little haunted as well. "But then her blood would escape from her skin. It would spread everywhere..._everywhere_...delving into every tiny crack and crease...coating the whole room...and then...then the _smell _would come. It would rise...float from the blood like a miasma...choking us..."

Heidi seemed to have gone into a kind of trance, taking the whole room of vampires with her, in her little mental video clip.

In a tiny, forgotten corner of his brain, which was where his poor abused mind and crept to after imagining what he was hearing, Aro dazedly noted that it was quite interesting seeing a roomful of vampires look like they would have nightmares for as long as they lived.

Even Alice and Jasper looked a shade paler than normal (which was quite a feat).

Aro decided to break the silence by saying," Alice, you were saying something about solving the problem?"

He was thinking, _Please, _please _make there be some way, ANY WAY, to get rid of the Empath...And that Alice knows it and is willing to tell me. Please!_

"Actually..."

_No. Don't do this!_

"...I wasn't saying anything of the sort..."

_...I hate karma._

"...I was actually going to say that..." Alice trailed off when she saw that Heidi's eyes seemed to be focused on her. The other female vampire's gaze was locked on her, but not focused. If Heidi could drool, she probably would be doing it.

In fact, the entire room full of vampires apart from Jasper, Alice and Aro seemed to have taken the same expression. Imagining the horrors, they had just shut down.

Emily looked guilty. "Huh...I guess I broke them...Wait, no, HEIDI broke them." She looked at Heidi's glazed eyes. "Somehow that isn't as consoling as it should have been." She waved her hand in front of Heidi's face. Nothing happened. "Oh, trust this ice-cream-hating freak to break a room full of immortal beings," she said cheerfully as she lent on the frozen Heidi.

"If you consider that it was imagining your blood that did it, it was actually you who broke the room full of vampires," concluded Jasper logically.

"I like you better when you don't say anything," decided Emily aloud.

"Emily!" reproved Alice.

"Sorry Jasper, I like you plenty when you talk," Emily said immediately. Aro stared at her. "Yes, Aro, who likes ice cream?"

Aro ignored that last bit. "Alice didn't even ask you to apologize. She just said your name. Yet you did what she wanted. Why?"

Emily looked at him like he was crazy. "Because I like her."

"And you did what Gianna asked...why?"

"Which one's Gianna?"

"Who is the only other person you have obeyed thus far?"

"Right, receptionist lady. Between you and me she kind of scared me."

Aro was momentarily speechless.

Eventually he managed, "I'm sorry, _she_, the _human_, scared you?"

"Yeah! Did you see her give me that evil glare!"

"And what of the room full of vampires who give you, and I quote, 'evil glares'?"

"Oh, no, honey, 'cause there's evil, and there's just plain knee-knocking, horrifying, icy cold _evil_. She was the latter," Emily said wisely.

"Ah." It was all Aro could manage.

"By the way, where is the delightful reincarnation of the devil?"

"That's right. Where is Gianna?" asked Alice in confusion, looking around.

"Don't tell me that, on top of fixing a room full of vampires, I have to find a receptionist?" asked Emily exasperatedly.

"Well, you shouldn't have broken them then!" remarked Alice.

"I didn't! It was her!" she pointed at Heidi, who didn't react.

"Emily," Alice reprimanded.

Emily sighed. "Fine.' She turned around and looked at the Gianna-free, broken-vampire-full room. "Now how do I do this...?"


	7. Past Lessons Remembered

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Seven**

Past Lessons Remembered

"Hm..." Emily mused as she stalked around the vampires. "Hm. Hmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-"

"Stop that," Aro told her.

"I'm thinking."

"I think he wants you to do it without sounding like a demented bee," Alice told her, smiling to take the edge off her words.

"Humming makes me think better _not that it's much of an improvement_ shut it, Maya _I am only saying that thinking is not one of your best_-"

"Is anyone else getting a headache from that?" asked Jasper, rubbing his temples. Alice put up her hand and Aro gave a small nod. "At least I'm not alone."

"You know what I need?" Emily announced. "Ice cream."

"..."

"..."

"...Can I ask exactly how that fitted to the context of the current situation?" Aro inquired.

"Like ice cream always does," nodded Emily wisely.

"...Your attempt at wisdom is a little pathetic."

"Yeah, well, your face is pathetic, and Maya agrees _I don't_ she does _I don't _she does."

"Please stop that," Aro told them, Emily and Maya, politely.

"Tell her to!"

"I was talking to both of you."

"_I apologise, Aro_," said Maya. Emily immediately said, "I don't."

"Of course you don't."

Emily decided to ignore this. She struck a thoughtful pose. "You know what else I need?"

"Enlighten us," Aro told her in a flat voice.

She looked at him askew. "You know, Aro, I don't think you're as enthusiastic about this as I think you should be."

He looked at her. "Really? What could possibly make you have that opinion?"

" What I need to fix this problem is a vampire spanner."

"...Good luck with that," Alice piped up. "I think you'd probably have to actually invent one first, thought."

Emily gestured at the frozen vampires as she said, "well, it's not like they're going anywhere." Alice had to conclude that this was true. "So, what would a vampire spanner look like?" She looked at the unfrozen vampires. "Any ideas?"

"I'm afraid not," declined Aro.

Alice shook her head. Jasper said, "sorry."

"Well, you're a bloody imaginative lot now aren't you? _Don't be rude_. I'm not being rude. _You are._ Look, I'll ask. Hey, guys? Am I being rude?"

There was a silence.

"See? They're not answering. That means no..._I think you just murdered logic_. That's not the point. The point is that I have a sudden craving for a large ice cream muffin."

"Don't you mean ice cream cake?" Alice frowned.

"No. Cakes are over-rated. Muffins are for awesome people with too much coolness for ordinary ice cream. But not slutmuffins, like the one who broke everyone. _You just desecrated the cold, dead body of logic._ Quiet, you! I'm busy mentally constructing my vampire spanner! So far it looks like a magical beach umbrella which transforms into a spatula and dispenses ice cream as well."

There was a brief silence. Emily's eye colour signified Maya taking control. "_What ever was left of logic's remains was just cut up into very small pieces and burnt out of existence._ Good. Logic annoys me."

"A lot of things make sense now," commented Jasper.

"May I ask," began Aro.

"No," replied Emily. "_Emily_," remonstrated Maya.

"...Why ice cream?" Aro continued, as if the Empath had not spoken. "Why would that fix anyone?"

"Because ice cream is a magical food full of magical powers which make magic things happen and even uttering the words 'ice cream' is enough to make the world stop turning."

"...So basically you just picked the food for no particular reason?" Aro translated Emily-speak into something vaguely understandable.

Emily nodded and smiled brightly. "I agree. Muffins are cool, but just normal ice cream shows an elegance far beyond anything muffins could obtain."

"Emily," Alice got the girl's attention. "Can you please get back to the point?"

"Ice cream is my point," Emily told them brightly. Maya took over. "_If you don't mind, I have a question...Why are you three still functioning_?"

"I was wondering that myself," nodded Alice musingly.

"Maybe it's because you like ice cream."

"Perhaps it is because they are functioning as a whole."

"_What do you mean?_ I really wish you wouldn't hijack my body at random."

"I mean that the Volturi has been operating as one whole for a long time," Aro explained. "The group mentality may have led to them all being incapacitated like this."

"Screw you, teamwork!" exclaimed Emily.

"I suppose that makes sense," agreed Alice. "But what about you?"

Behind Emily's eyes, Maya began watching a lot more intently. Emily felt this. She thought, very clearly, _Maya? What are you doing_?

'Watching,' the entity replied.

_But why?_

'To see what he does.'

"Perhaps my recent...for lack of any other word I will call it relationship with the Empath has granted me some immunity against certain horrors."

"Why does everyone always blame me?" whined Emily, re-focusing on the current happenings.

"Perhaps because it is always your fault," replied Aro immediately.

"Maybe, since you have that link with all of them, you can help them," advised Jasper, wondering why he was helping them. Maybe it was the Empath. It was like Emily's presence united all of them against her. She was just that annoying.

"That's an idea," agreed Alice, smiling at Jasper.

"Perhaps," mused Aro.

Maya looked out from behind Emily's eyes, gazing at Aro as if trying to urge him on.

_If you really want him to succeed maybe you can give him a hint_, Emily thought to the other. _If you know how to help them all, that is_.

For a long moment Maya considered this. Emily could feel her desire to do what she had advised, to nudge Aro along. But, eventually, Maya's answer was, 'no.'

_Why not_? Asked the ever-curious Emily.

'He must do this alone.'

_But why_?

'If he does not, he will not learn.'

Emily changed her focus from the mental conversation silently going on between Maya and herself in her head to the events around her.

"But I would not know how," Aro murmured.

"We can't just leave them stuck there," Alice protested. Again, there was that use of 'we', as if they had changed from the Cullens and Volturi to Vampires and Emily, one united to balance the effects of the other.

"I'm not saying we should," replied the older vampire. "But I don't know how to help them."

_It doesn't seem to be going very well_, Emily noted.

'I didn't expect it to.'

_But you expect him to be able to do this?_

'Yes.'

_What if he can't?_

'He must.'

_Yes, but what if he can't?_

'Then he will have forgotten everything I taught him.'

"Well, what can we use?" asked Alice, looking around. "We have my future-telling abilities."

"Can you see how to help them?" asked Aro intently.

"No. Only what will happen if we do and if we don't."

"Elaborate, if you will," the older vampire requested, courteous as always.

"If we do help them then from what I can see -which, I've got to admit, isn't much- things will eventually go okay...I think."

"You think?" repeated Aro, eyebrows risen a little.

"I told you, my gift can be vague and unreliable."

"What happens if we don't?" asked Jasper, prodding the conversation back on track.

"If we don't..._That_ is actually quite clear. Emily annoys you-"

"Unsurprising," noted Aro.

"I am still in the room, just so you know," Emily reminded them.

"Me and Jasper leave," continued Alice, shooting a glance at Jasper.

"Also unsurprising," nodded Aro.

"The vampires on the outside slowly become more and more reckless, seeing as there is a complete absence of response from the Volturi. From there I keep seeing two futures, which is, I think, kind of a fork in the road situation. On one side nobody does anything and the existence of vampires is revealed. I can see a lot of fear. Hatred. The human world in turmoil."

"But wouldn't your family stop that from happening?"

"That's what happens in the other glimpses I get. In those we all band together and stop the news of our existence spreading by hunting down those vampires who would reveal it."

Aro tilted his head quizzically. "Carlisle?"

Alice nodded, shutting her eyes. She had a hurt, injured expression. Jasper touched her arm and the lines of fear and worry on her face smoothed. She opened her eyes and looked at Aro, answering his question with, "amongst others."

"I would have never guessed...Do they become another Volturi?"

"They wouldn't-" began Jasper.

"They do," interrupted Alice.

Jasper stared at her. "But..."

"Hunting down those vampires change them. It makes them more ruthless. Edward disagrees with it and takes Bella and Nessie away. Emmett, Rosalie, Carlisle and Esme all fight together. It changes them, Esme especially. She becomes so withdrawn and...sad." Alice's eyes looked far away into an unseen distance, her face filling once again with fear, worry and, this time sorrow as well. "Carlisle becomes ruthless. Emmett takes on everyone who looks strong and becomes a fighter like no-one has ever seen before. Rosalie becomes vindictive. Anyone who she thinks is a bad person she... kills." Alice shut her eyes and shuddered. There was a silence.

_So, basically, I may have just instigated the end of the world_? Commented Emily mentally.

'That is what it sounds like.'

_...I feel kind of guilty...and I'm over it. What now_? Emily asked Maya silently.

'Now we see what he does.'

Emily turned her eyes to Aro and watched. Aro's face was blank. For a long, drawn-out moment he was silent. Then, "clearly we can not let that happen."

Alice and Jasper looked up.

"We must find a way to help undo this mess. Jasper, is there any way your powers could assist us?"

Jasper shook his head. "While we were speaking I tried calming them, making them happy, even angry, but nothing could get them to move."

"What about your power?" asked Alice, still looking disturbed by what she had seen.

"I don't see how I could do anything," Aro began, but then stopped. He mulled something over.

Emily felt the mental equivalent of Maya leaning forward. _You know, if you want to do a little cheer for him or anything, you're welcome to_.

'...I think I will not be taking you up on that.'

_It just seemed like you got the urge to._

'No. I just want Aro to remember.'

_Remember what_? Asked Emily in confusion.

'Let me show you.'

A strange series of events flickered through Emily's mind, like a tap had been turned on and it was all coming out in a jumble, just as present-day events folded out in front of her eyes.

_The boy was young. He was also human, and much less attractive than his vampire form. He looked so different without his chalky skin that, at first, Emily thought he was another human and not Aro._

_She was looking out from the eyes of someone who Emily knew to be Maya while she still had a body to walk around in. Aro walked beside Maya, holding her hand, and Emily could feel the boy's small, warm hand in Maya's, thought it felt like her own._

"_Maya?" asked the boy. He was looking at something across the dusty street of an unrecognisable place._

"_Yes, Aro?"_

"_Why don't those boys stop fighting?"_

_Maya looked around. A few small boys were scuffling about in the dirt, apparently fighting for a few fruit which lay on the dust. "What do you mean?"_

"_If they divided up the fruit they'd all have a piece."_

_Maya smiled. "You are a smart boy, Aro."_

Maya had shown her all she wanted the Empath to see of that day. Emily refocused on the present. Aro turned around slowly. "This horror is psychological," he began. "So, perhaps, if I look through their minds, I can find the right words or get you, Jasper, to instigate the right feeling, to draw them out of their current state."

"Seems worth a try," Alice nodded.

"If you are willing, the so am I," agreed Jasper.

_It was a few days after the previous flashback. Maya was putting together a small afternoon meal for herself and Aro to share when the boy in question came running into the room. "Aro, I just finished...What is the matter?"_

_Tears fell down the boys face. A series of small cuts and bruises told the story of a fight, and, by the looks of it, a bad one. "I..." He began, unable to continue as he gulped down air._

"_Calm down," she told him as she crouched in front of the boy, wiping his face with the edge of her sleeve. "What happened?"_

"_I t-told the boys th-they sh-sh-should just sh-share the f-f-fruit bec-cause they h-had some m-more," the boy gasped through his tears. "And th-th-they th-thought I w-w-w-was ordering th-them ar-around."_

"_Oh, Aro," sighed Maya, Emily acting as a third person observer behind her eyes, feeling everything Maya felt. "Understand that those boys have been bossed around all their lives."_

"_B-but-" began the boy._

"_Sh, Aro. I'm not saying that you didn't do the right thing, because it would have been better for them all if they shared the fruit. But you've also got to understand it from their point of view."_

...From their point of view.

_That's what you want him to remember_? Thought Emily.

'Aro learned how to see people as people instead of subjects of conquer and put under his control,' Maya explained. 'I want him to remember that.'

Emily watched Aro move towards Heidi and slip a palm to hers._ That's all? You want him to remember that vampires are people_?

'That all people are people.'

_But...That doesn't really seem like it could do him any good._

Aro looked through Heidi's mind. He leaned close to her and whispered some words into his ear. He continued whispering until there was something else in Heidi's eyes. Like a sun dawning over the horizon she returned, until she slowly blinked.

"It worked," Alice blurted out in surprise. She smiled delightedly. "The future just changed." Heidi looked around, a little dazed, as Aro moved on to Felix.

'That is where you are wrong, Emily,' replied Maya. 'It will do him a world of good. In knowing others lies the secret of leadership.'

_He seems like a good enough leader already._

'He is a dictator. I want him to lead.'

Aro moved on from vampire to vampire, gradually freeing the room.

_I don't understand._

'Let me make you.'

_Maya watched, from the shadows, as Aro smiled at the boys. It was a few weeks after he had come home crying. He had spent time getting to know the boys, first watching them, then talking to them a little. At first, they were still hostile, but he kept going until they trusted him. He learned about them, who they were, what their deepest desires were. He was always a perceptive boy. Soon, they followed his suggestions, slowly making their lives better. After a while they learned to function properly. They now moved around, looking a little cleaner and happier, as they played games and laughed together. Fighting had made them forget how good friends they had been._

_That night, when he came home, he was beaming. "Maya, Maya, the boys, they are happy now." He happily nattered on for a while about the games and their new way of life._

"_But will they continue doing that when you leave?" asked Maya. "Because you know we will have to soon."_

_Aro's face fell. "But...They need me."_

"_Then teach them not to. Because, Aro, that is what a good leader does. A good leader makes it so his subjects can live without him but _choose_ not to."_

_Aro tilted his head. "How can I do that?"_

"_ Teach them. But true trust, trust which would make them fall backwards if you promised to catch them, is something which must be earned. Remember that, Aro."_

_Aro nodded. "I'll remember."_

'But he forgot.'

_And that's why you're doing this_? Asked Emily.

'Partly.'

Emily watched as Aro moved from person to person. He would hesitate, gently trailing his hand over theirs, or touching their face, his eyes half-closed as he looked into their eyes. And then he'd lean in and say something, something too quiet for Emily to make out. If she wanted, she could have listened harder. She could have taken that ability. But this was a moment where she was happy not to. _Has he remembered?_

'Yes, I think he has.'

A few times Aro had to turn to Jasper, getting the younger vampire to instigate some emotion which would make the frozen vampires live again.

Emily smiled.

_Somehow, I think he's remembered._

'I think so too.'

In her voice there was a smile.

Aro moved through each of his vampires. He had forgotten... People, if you took the time to read them, to delve into their core, were so much bigger on the inside than on the outside. They had lived, especially vampires, and had things which made them desperately, desperately sad, or angry, or happy. He had looked through those minds many times before, some more often than others. But it was like he was looking through new eyes. Before, it was like he'd been blind. Now he could see.

It was an experience.

The stench in their place had faded to an acceptable, if not pleasant, level, so the vampires moved there as they came to. Aro walked there, Emily at his side, Alice and Jasper following.

"Heidi!" the girl cheered happily as she spotted the female vampire from across the room. "My buddy ol' pal!"

"Oh, god, not you again," the other murmured.

Emily's face dropped. "You aren't happy to see me?"

"No. If four million humans suddenly learned of our existence and were coming to kill me I would be happier to see them than I am to see you."

"That's mean. You aren't a very nice person."

"And you're an annoying one."

Emily reacted to this as if she had been paid a compliment. "Aw...Thanks, Heidi! It's so nice to be recognised."

"...I hate you," Heidi told her miserably.

"I like ice cream." replied Emily brightly.

"Well, this is fun and all," Alice began as she smiled a relieved smile. The same expression had been gracing her features since all the first vampires had been freed.

"I'm glad someone thinks so," Emily told her happily. She looked at Heidi. "Now why can't you be as fun as her?"

If looks could kill Emily would be a corpse. Probably an annoying one, but a corpse nevertheless. "I am perfectly, as you say, 'fun'. Just not when I'm being irritated by a trumped up human who steals our powers and who I would happily throw off the nearest cliff."

"You know, if it came to throwing someone off a cliff, I could probably throw you off before you could do the same to me," pointed out Emily.

"I know," moaned Heidi miserably.

"But I think it's time for Jasper and I to leave."

The entire room went dead silent.

"Ha, _now_ who broke them," smiled Emily victoriously. Then the words reached her brain. "Wait...you're leaving?"

"We can't stay forever," pointed out Alice.

Aro had to conclude that this was correct, but he never really thought of trying to deal with the Empath alone again. "Why now?" he inquired.

Heidi interrupted her answer with large, imploring eyes. "Please don't leave us alone with _her_."

A little disturbed by Heidi's gaze, Alice looked back at Aro. "We really only came because I saw you killing Emily and then yourselves to get away from the smell. Then chaos began...And we couldn't let that happen, so Jasper and I came. It seems like everything is okay now-"

"It's not," said at least four vampires from the crowd.

"...Jasper," implored Alice. Jasper smiled a little and waved a hand. Everyone in the crowd relaxed a little and the tense atmosphere dispersed just a notch.

"I really wish you wouldn't do that," commented Aro, feeling soothed himself.

"I thought it seemed appropriate," Jasper replied.

"But..." Emily looked at Alice. "I don't want you to leave. I wanted to talk to you some more...And make fun of Jasper...Which I never really got to do, and he might think he's missing out if I don't-"

"I think I'll live with it," Jasper said, in the spirit of self-sacrificing.

"But I would always feel bad. Please stay," Emily begged. "I'll miss you so much that I...I..."

They waited.

"...I'll do something really bad."

"Emily," chided Alice gently.

"I think everyone would feel safer if you stayed," pointed out Aro. "Your presence seems to sooth Emily a little...Or distracts her, in any case."

"We'll be in the city somewhere, at least for a few days," Alice told them. "If anything drastic happens, you can just find us there."

Aro deliberately looked at Emily. "...Drastic? Doesn't she automatically count?"

"Life-threateningly drastic."

"I'll miss you, Alice," Emily said as she hugged the other vampire. Alice smiled, hugged her back, caught her scent and flinched a little.

"I'll miss you too," Alice gasped. "But not your smell."

Emily drew back and Alice breathed in again. Emily turned to Jasper and hugged him too. "You like ice cream so we're friends."

"If you say so," Jasper said, trying not to breath and awkwardly patting her on the back before she let go.

"Farewell," Aro said formally. "It was interesting meeting you like this."

"Likewise," replied Alice. Jasper inclined his head.

As Alice and Jasper began to head out Emily waved at them enthusiastically. "Bye, Alice! Bye, Jasper! Take care! Look both ways before you cross the road! And eat lots of ice cream, it's really good here! They call it eel jelly-ah-toe."

"Okay," Alice replied.

"I'll remember," Jasper called back.

With that they were gone.

"I miss them already," sighed Emily.

"As do I," Aro agreed, though for a different reason, one which had a lot more to do with Emily than with Alice and Jasper.

But, strangely, though the room, once Jasper's enforced calm faded, was filled with trepidation, Emily didn't say much. For a good half hour things were peaceful as she more or less sat in the corner, staring off into the distance. Obviously her thoughts were troubling her.

And Aro didn't feel the least bit guilty in hoping they would trouble her for a lot longer if they kept her quiet.

Emily was thinking about Maya. Maya had retreated, now. But Emily could not stop remembering the small glimpses she had gotten of Maya's life.

What else was the woman hiding from her?

The old ghost had come to her for a reason. Emily wasn't stupid. She acted that way because it annoyed people and trolling everyone was just too hilarious an opportunity to miss. But Maya wasn't stupid either. She had bound Emily to Aro for a reason. She did everything for a reason. She had raised Aro, something Emily had suspected. But was she a relative, his mother, or something different? But Maya answered no questions, no matter how loudly or often Emily thought them. So she decided to leave it alone.

The peace had to end.

"Excuse me?" said a polite and very much human voice from the doorway. Aro and Emily both looked up.

"Gianna!" cheered Emily as she stood. "_That_ was the other thing I meant to do...Find the receptionist. I _knew_ I was forgetting something."

Gianna didn't seem perturbed by the fact that she had, more or less, been forgotten. She looked at Aro. "I hope you don't mind me taking the initiative to bring you something," she asked him.

"Not at all," Aro smiled courteously and Gianna smiled back. Aro already knew what it was so it was no real surprise when Gianna stood aside and led in a person. It looked to be a child of about six. Gianna looked at Aro, still smiling. "I brought you lunch. I hope you don't mind young blood."

Emily stood up. "_I don't think so_." At that moment it was hard to tell if it was Emily of Maya speaking as if she had transformed into a vampire. The entire room cried out in horror. Emily disappeared and moved faster than most of them could move, tapping the child on the head hard enough to knock him out but light enough to not do any permanent damage. She disappeared. For a few long moments there was silence.

Then Aro broke it. "I think we may have a problem."

Emily ran faster than a human could run, bringing the human child to the surface. It was night again. A group of humans were babbling close by. Emily could see that they were police. Emily set the child down around the corner and called out to them in fluent Italian, "aiutate il bambino!" _Help the boy_.

She jumped on top of the building and watched as they found the child, looking around for the person who had called. A few crossed themselves before taking the child to safety.

Emily sighed in relief before lying on her back, trying not to breathe. It had taken all her angry energy and strength not to bite into the child. Even as she lay there all she could smell were the scents of the humans around her. She'd been angry. So many children had been hurt in her time. They never used to matter. She had the feeling that, sometime, she had hurt them too. But she wouldn't let a young life end like that. And she wouldn't harm the policemen either. Although, god, they smelled so good, and she was so, so thirsty...

But she would not harm them.

She would not.

'Emily,' whispered a voice inside her head and, for a moment, Emily did not know where it came from. But then she remembered.

"Maya," she whispered aloud. "Maya, help me."

'Emily, you've got to help yourself. You are an Empath, not a vampire. Change back.'

"Maya, I can't."

'You can.'

"I..."

'You are an Empath. Your form is human. You decided that.' Maya's voice, if it could be called that, was no-nonsense. 'Do not act like a child. Do not stamp your foot and refuse to do the necessary. You put yourself into this situation, so now get yourself out of it.'

Emily squeezed her dark, dark eyes shut.

A terrible pain coursed through her. The pain from the change shouldn't have been so agonising any more. She'd done it a few times, but it never weakened. And she always had to force herself to endure it, force herself to keep coming back for more, like she was diving into acid, and had to fight to keep herself underneath, even though she couldn't breath..._ can't breath_... and it... she screamed in her head... hurt.

When she looked up again she gasped. Her eyes were hazel once more. She had done it. She always did it. It was just a matter of willpower.

Maya forced Emily to go back, running as fast as she could. "Alright, alright, I'm almost there... You're such a stalker, can't bear to be away from him for even a minute..." They were expecting her.

"I gave the child to the police," she told them.

"You had no right to do that," Aro told her quietly.

Emily considered him. She could rage on about he had no right to snatch a child off the streets, to cut short another's life. She could tell him how many children she'd seen die, how many she hadn't been able to save, that sometimes she had gotten it wrong. Sometimes she had annoyed the wrong people. Sometimes children died because of her, and that she had to save some now, just to atone for that. But that wasn't Emily the Empath, the happy, annoying traveller. So she smiled brightly and said, " ice cream told me to, so there."

Aro shook his head. "Stop trying to change the subject."

"Ah, but you forget. Ice cream is _always_ the subject."

"I must drink blood."

"Bit of a whiner, aren't you?" Emily smiled sweetly. "The only blood that will be shed here is mine."

"That isn't an option."

"Then think of something else."

Behind Emily's eyes, Maya smiled.


	8. A Reluctant Decision

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Eight**

A Reluctant Decision

"If any blood is going to be spilled tonight, it will be my own."

The words echoed around the suddenly silent room.

Heidi broke the silence. "You can't be serious. You can _not_ be serious."

Emily looked at her with hurt eyes and Aro almost groaned. With anybody else the Empath would have been annoying.

But for Heidi?

Heidi, who she had taken a special dislike to?

For Heidi the Empath girl would happily, and with no visible twinge of conscience, be completely and utterly _insufferable_.

"I'm hurt, Heidi," Emily told the female vampire.

"I really wish you were."

"I mean," Emily ploughed on, ignoring Heidi's remark. Aro found it sad that remarks like that which had just slipped out of Heidi's lips had become an automatic response. "I think this is one of the few times I _am_ serious. You should mark this day and pass it on to...Well, I can't really say future generations...You should just pass it onto somebody, okay? Somebody who likes ice cream. _You seemed to have strayed from the point_. _You_ strayed from the point. _I wasn't speaking_...Anyway, the point is serious moment for me are rare gems which should be coveted and treasured. It's like finding a non-whore-like Heidi in a town full of Heidis." Emily's brain seemed to catch up with her mouth and she shuddered. "A town full of Heidis. _Ick_."

But Emily's original remark had not been forgotten. "Empath, or whatever you are," snapped Felix. "We are the _Volturi_."

Emily waited expectantly but Felix just stared at her angrily. "...Yeah, I kind of realised. I don't know what it is that screams 'Volturi' to me about you people...Maybe it's the fact that you've actually screamed that you're Volturi at me...Or, you know, it could be the walls or something..." Emily's gaze travelled away from Felix's newly confused look, which probably arose from Emily's last comment and how it contained not a whit of sarcasm.

"...The walls?" he repeated.

"Yeah. The walls. They're those big hard things -NOT WHAT YOU'RE THINKING OF, HEIDI- which separate the rooms."

"I _know_ what walls are," Felix retorted angrily. "But how do they scream out 'Volturi'?"

"Hm...Good question. It might be too subtle. Maybe if you wrote on the wall in big block letters 'Volturi', that would get the message across."

"...What?" Now Felix was _really_ confused. Emily laughed at him.

"Your face is funny," she giggled.

"What was your original point, Felix?" asked Aro when he saw the younger vampire floundering in the face of pure, illogical randomness.

He blinked, as if awaking from a daze, and said, "that we are the Volturi and therefore we are vampires."

Emily clapped a few times. "Correct. You get a sticker!" She stopped clapping. "Actually...No, you don't. I don't actually have any stickers...But I'll _think_ that you have a sticker, and that's just as good."

"_Vampires_ drink _blood_," Felix continued. "The two are interlinked. You can not seriously expect the master to go without it."

"I can and I will."

"You are being illogical and unreasonable-"

"ICE CREAM!" screamed Emily.

Felix looked at her and for what felt like the fourth time said, "...what?"

"You said I was being illogical and unreasonable so I decided to do something illogical and unreasonable."

"...I give up." Felix backed off and sat in the corner, staring moodily at the wall. "Someone else try to make her understand because she just confuses me."

"Aw, did I hurt poor little Felix's brain?" Emily said in a baby-voice. After a few moments of him ignoring her she told him, "it doesn't matter how long you stare at the wall, it's still not going to change into ice cream. I should know. I've tried it."

"We must drink blood to survive," tried Demetri. "If we don't..."

"Then what?" inquired Emily. "You get hungrier? So what? Aro will survive a little hunger. That human wouldn't survive being _eaten_."

"We don't actually eat the humans," Aro pointed out mildly.

"You aren't included in this conversation."

He rose an eyebrow.

"Well...Yeah, you are...But we're talking _about_ you, not _to_ you."

"Why do you care so much about the humans?" asked Aro, tilting his head as he looked at Emily.

"Care? Me? Ha! I care about nothing! Except, maybe, ice cream," the Empath replied.

He tried another tactic. "I must feed. You must realise this."

"Not while I'm here you won't."

Aro frowned. He was already thirsty and the sensation was being aggravated by the Empath's refusal to let him drink. "I _must_."

"Don't care," replied Emily flippantly.

The old vampire paused and looked at her with eyes which seemed to grow colder as she watched. "If you challenge me like this I will fight you," Aro told her, the cold certainty in his voice chilling as ice sliding down a naked back.

Emily looked at him.

'How he has changed,' Maya noted in the back of her head. She sounded strangely sad.

_Huh_?

'This reminds me of the last time I found him starving.'

_You found him starving?_

'I did.'

Aro's eyes were as cold as ice. But it was like ice hiding something. Occasionally, something else glimpsed through.

What glimpsed through looked a little like fear.

'And, perhaps, it reminds him of the same.'

_The road was dusty. It wearied those who tread upon it more than a road should. It was like the abject poverty of the surroundings crept under the road and sapped life from the walkers, like it was trying to instil that same life into those who lived in the area._

_Maya didn't suffer this same lapse of energy._

_Perhaps it was because she wasn't the same as those wearied travellers around her._

_Maya was looking for something. She had a shape in her head, one she could fill with someone, but she needed the right person..._

_She left the road, feeling as if invisible strings pulled her. She walked until she found a little 'house' which was more like broken pieces of wood stacked up against each other. She peered inside._

_Inside, a boy cried._

_She had found him._

But, I don't understand...What does this have to-

_'Just watch and you will see.'_

_The boy looked at her, tears running down his face. Maya looked at him in silence. There was another person in the little 'house'._

_Or, rather, another body._

_Flies crawled over the bruised flesh, bruised in the way that only the dead could be bruised._

_"Is that person dead?" inquired Maya softly, knowing they were, but wanting to establish a connection with the boy._

_The boy nodded, fear of this stranger making him tremble and making the gesture jerky and rapid._

_"Are you hungry?"_

_That jerky nod again, as if he were being pulled around by a puppeteer who was trying to break him with the jerky movements._

_Maya took out some hard, heavy bread and broke off a piece, giving it to the boy. He snatched at it and shoved it in his mouth, swallowing it whole, and looking at the bread in Maya's hands with large, piteous eyes._

_"Chew this time," Maya told him as she gave him a little more. The boy obeyed, perhaps hoping that he would get some more if he did what she asked. "Is that your father?"_

_The boy hesitated, glanced at the body, then shuddered and looked away. He nodded and began eating again. Not even the decaying corpse could stay his hunger._

_"Have you eaten since he died?"_

_The boy shook his head again, finishing off the bread and looking at her expectantly. She gave him some more._

_"What is your name?"_

_The boy shrugged._

_"Don't you have one?"_

_He finished off that part of the bread and looked at her some more, but this time Maya wanted answers._

_"Can you speak?"_

_He nodded._

_She rose her eyebrows, waiting._

_He said, "yes," in a rough voice which suggested it had little use._

_"What did your father call you?"_

_"Boy," replied the boy in that harsh voice, now sad. "Bastard. Some other things."_

_"I see," she replied carefully. "How did you two come to be here?"_

_"Mother came from a wealthy family. Father was a servant. When father got her with child he was kicked out. Mother died as she gave birth to me and I was given to father."_

_She gave him the last of the bread and he wolfed it down. "Slower. You'll make yourself sick." He obeyed again. Maya could now make out shadows on his face and arm, half-healed bruises which spoke of abuse._

_"So you don't have a name?" she began again. "Then I shall give you one and, as payment for it, you shall come with me on my travels."_

_Some would say that was unfair, the price too steep. Those people did not know the value of a name._

_He looked up, finishing the bread. Now that she had no more he turned from a piteous boy into an annoyed ruffian. He sneered. "Why should I do that?"_

_"What else will you do?"_

_He had no answer to that._

_"Your name will be Aro." She said it almost before she could think of it. The name flew to her lips and attached itself to the boy. She could see him sitting up a little straighter, the sneer which had twisted his face smoothing._

_"A-ro," he tried the name out._

_"And you will learn to fly straight and true," she told him. "Come, Aro. Let us find something more to eat."_

_He scrambled out without question, but then paused, looking man at the man who had tormented him. "What...about..."_

_"The earth will reclaim him in time," Maya assured him. "But we have more pressing concerns. You, for instance, must be starving."_

_He nodded. "I don't want to be hungry anymore."_

_"If I can help it, you won't be."_

'Aro didn't suit him at first. He was a ruffian. A pathetic, hungry child off the streets. The universe called me to take him under my wing and I did, but it was without any affection on my part. At least at first.

'Then he changed into what you see now. Sophisticated. Aloof. But, at his centre, hidden deep down, that nameless child is still crying. No matter what I tried, he would never stop. And he still has not.'

It was silent inside Emily's head or a moment, in that space which was unoccupied by either of them and acted as a kind of bridge for them to meet and speak on.

_You forgot something_, Emily pointed out. _He's also a vampire_.

Maya had made the time it took for the flashback to only be a few seconds. Only a handful of moment had passed before Aro made his declaration.

"Oh, honey, if you want to fight me," she began sympathetically. "Then I would be happy to steal the powers of all the vampires in this room to kick your hiney. And even if I _couldn't_ do that I would still use the powers of ice cream and kick your hiney."

"Is that so?" asked Aro mildly but with that cold undercurrent edging his voice that clearly stated he would be willing to try.

"Yep. But I don't think it will come to that. After all, the Cullens have managed to live without drinking human blood, so you should too."

"The...Cullens?" asked Aro, a little surprised over this change in conversation.

"Uh-huh. I know!" she clicked her fingers as if an idea had suddenly come into her head, her eyes lighting up. "Let's go see Alice and Jasper and see what they think you should do! Come on, let's go!" She began walking out of the room cheerfully with little bouncing steps which hinted that, given a few moments, she'd started jumping up and down in excitement at seeing her friend again.

"Why would we do that?" asked Aro, staying where he was.

"Because," Emily threw over her shoulder. "It's better than fighting. After all...Are you honestly sure that you could win? As far as you know, I could do anything." Her voice had taken on a half-teasing, half-serious tone.

Aro tilted his head at her curiously. It was true. As far as he knew, she really _could_ do anything. Even so... "I somehow doubt they would want you and to bother them so soon after they left."

"They won't mind! They like ice cream too!" exclaimed Emily before bouncing down the corridor outside.

"It seems I must take a short trip," he said to the surrounding vampires.

There was a general muttering of acceptance.

"After I sort this out, I will return." Aro walked out, following the Empath.

"So, how long do you think it will take for Emily to annoy them enough that they come find us again?" asked Jasper. He and Alice sat in a shadowed park, the greenery cloaked by night.

Jasper sensed a rush of emotion from Alice. Surprise with and edge of exasperation, then amusement. She began laughing.

"What is it?" asked Jasper, though he felt he already knew the answer.

"Oh, Emily, could you try to stay out of trouble for two minutes," laughed the small vampire.

Jasper asked, in a deadpan voice, "are they coming? She's annoyed them _that much_ already?"

Alice nodded. "She's annoyed them that much already."


	9. Different Ways to Say 'Hell No'

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Nine**

Different Ways To Say 'HELL NO!'

"So...any ideas on how to find them?" asked Emily cheerfully, her previous seriousness forgotten.

"Don't you?" asked Aro, raising his eyebrows. "They're your friends, are they not?"

"So you expect me to have some kind of inner radar for them or something?" Emily thought this over. "Actually, that would be really cool. Aro!"

"There's no need to shout, I am right here" he told her. They stood in the night air of Italy, having exited the dwelling of the Volturi. They were a little way from the entrance. "What is it?"

"Get me an inner radar."

He looked at her. "Do you speak nonsense all the time or just with me?"

"And I want my radar to look like ice cream."

"Of _course_ you speak nonsense all of the time."

"Because ice cream is good."

"Have you absorbed any abilities which would enable you to find them?" he continued, wanting to resolve the matter as fast as possible.

"Probably," she said, completely unconcerned.

He waited.

"What?"

"Use them," he told her.

She folded her arms. "You really shouldn't tell people what to do. It annoys them."

"Not more than you do."

"...Lies!" she said. She turned around, sighing. "Okay, abilities..._What of the tracker's ability_? Yeah, that would -HEY! Stop _doing_ that."

"Maya is correct," Aro told her. "The tracker's ability would be perfect."

"Yes, but that doesn't give her the right to say it," grumbled Emily. She sighed, shaking out her short hair. Aro exhaled as a small flicker of her scent washed over him. Emily shut her eyes. After a few moments she opened them again. "Right-eo. Found them."

"Good. Which way?" asked Aro. Emily pointed in front of them certainly and they set off. After a while they arrived at a park. They walked into it and a voice rang out.

"I _did_ expect you to last more than a few minutes without me," Alice began, her voice rich with amusement.

"Alice! I missed you so much!" cheered Emily as she hugged the small vampire, taking her hands and beginning to dance around with her. "Did you miss me?"

Alice laughed at the impromptu dance after a brief wince at the scent. "It's only been a few minutes."

"Yeah, but you still missed me, right?"

Alice relented. "Of course I did."

"But where is..." Emily looked around and saw Jasper. She grinned and enveloped him in a bear hug. "Yay, it's Jasper!"

Jasper looked a little stunned. "Uh..."

She let him go. "Teehee, you're _funny_ when you're face is all surprised like that."

"Emily, stop teasing him," Alice reprimanded gently as she took Jasper's hand.

Emily just laughed and looked at Aro, a mischievous glint coming into her eye. "What about you, Aro?"

"Pardon?" he inquired politely.

"Aren't you going to hug them too?"

Aro looked at Alice and Jasper.

Alice and Jasper looked at Aro.

Aro looked at Emily and said, "no."

"So, what is the problem?" asked Alice. "Why did you come here?"

"You did not see why?" Aro inquired curiously.

Alice's voice took on a tone which was a little more formal. "I have told you. My gift is not complete."

"Yeah, but it's cool," Emily butted in. "Cooler than an inner radar. Even cooler than ice cream. Actually, no, nothing could be cooler than ice cream." She looked at them expectantly. "Did you not hear my awesome pun? _Cooler_ than _ice cream. Cool,_ as in the temperature? _You just murdered that joke_. Quiet, Maya. Nobody asked you."

Aro turned to Alice. "We have come because of a little...incident." He explained the incident with the child.

There was a long moment of silence after he had spoken.

"I see," Alice nodded, frowning.

"But how can _we_ help?" asked Jasper, confused.

"That would be Emily's _forte_," Aro told them, indicating that Emily should speak.

"Well," began Emily. "Really, I can only think of one solution."

She paused.

"And that is?" urged Aro.

"Well..." she said again, as if trying to find a delicate way to put it.

Alice was getting a bad feeling. "Yes, Emily?"

"...You see..."

"It surely can't be that bad," Jasper told her.

Emily told them quickly, in a rush that they, being vampires, heard as clearly as if she had said it slowly.

"...I was wrong," amended Jasper morosely. "It _is_ that bad."

What they had heard was "YoushouldlivewiththeCullens."

"Emily," began Alice, trying for tact. "You know that _that_ is impossible."

"It wouldn't be forever," Emily assured them. "Just for a little while."

"That doesn't matter," Alice told her. "Right now..." She paused, thought for a moment. "There are problems with that."

"What, with the mini-vamp and everything? Yeah, I know about her. But she can, I don't know...Hide in the corner for our stay or something, if you're worried about her-"

"Emily!" exclaimed Alice, shocked.

"Maybe not, then," frowned Emily. She smiled. "I know! We can tempt her away with ice cream and feed her on that for a while in a cave somewhere!"

"I could not leave the Volturi," Aro told Emily firmly. "It is out of the question."

"What? So they're all incapable of taking care of themselves?" Emily shot back.

"No, that is not it."

"Good, because it would be kind of ridiculous for a bunch of vampires to need babysitting."

"Carlisle would not agree with it," Jasper told Emily quietly.

"So he would think they need babysitting?" asked Emily, a twinkle in her eye. It was replaced, in a moment, with one of thoughtfulness. "Carlisle...Carlisle...I know that name..." She clicked her fingers. "Blonde daddy vampire, yeah?"

"That's him," affirmed Jasper.

"Carlisle would most certainly not agree with it," Aro agreed wryly. "And neither would I."

"Why? Don't you like Blonde Daddy Vampire?"

"Oh, no, I like him," Aro disagreed lightly.

"Okay... Then what does the Blonde Daddy Vampire have against vampy boy?"

They were silent for a few moments.

Emily caught it and smiled wickedly. "Ooh...Have I stumbled across a few _issues_?" She laughed and clapped her hands. "Yay, issues! I like _issues_. Issues are always fun." She stopped and looked, very seriously, at Jasper. "Do _you_ have issues?"

He looked a little like a startled rabbit for a moment before Alice put a hand on his arm and said, seriously and with a touch of anger, "_Emily_. Stop it."

Emily looked at her. For a moment Aro saw hurt in her eyes, a hurt which both Alice and Jasper missed, as they chose that moment to glance at each other.

Then Emily's eyes changed.

Then Emily's everything changed.

Not physically, except for her eyes.

But it was clear that she was no longer Emily.

Now she was Maya.

"_You do not understand,_" she told them and now her words carried the weight of years, more years than they could count. "_Aro_ must_ go with you, Emily and I as well_."

"Why?" challenged Alice. Her voice was different to what it was like with Emily. She was less warm.

"_Because he must_."

"You didn't answer her question," Jasper said quietly, adjusting his posture subtlety to show he was protecting Alice.

"_It is none of your concern why he must do it_," Maya told them, her words almost shivering as they hung in air tangibly.

"But it is yours?" Alice asked.

"_It is_."

For the first time Alice voiced a question which had been playing on her mind like a pianist plays a piano, lightly touching here and there, striking chords of unease. She asked, "What _are_ you?"

Emily smiled, only it was not Emily. It was Maya, and it was impossible to forget that, even though she and Emily shared the same body.

Maya had come into Aro's life and then gone. But it now struck him, for the first time, that perhaps Maya had been doing something other than caring for a young boy.

"_That is none of your concern either_," Maya told them, a smile dancing upon her lips tantalisingly, as if it held knowledge Maya would not reveal."_Suffice to say that he must go with you_," Maya finished. Then she looked down, stumbled slightly, caught herself. When she looked up it was Emily and not Maya.

"Whew...And I thought I was getting good at the whole switching-bodies thing. So, did she creep you out enough to make you say yes?"

They were silent, staring at her. After a few moments she waved at them and jumped up and down a bit. "HELLO!"

Now they jumped, as if waking from a daze.

"That's a relief. For a moment there I thought that I'd broken some vampires again...Not that I did it the first time. It was Heidi. Don't _look_ at me like that. It _was_."

"It isn't our decision to make," admitted Jasper reluctantly.

Alice nodded. "Ultimately, we'll have to go with this to Carlisle and everyone. We can't just say yes without consulting them."

"Then do so," Aro urged simply. Alice blinked at him. "Go to Carlisle and ask him. I will reserve my own decision until he has made his."

Jasper nodded. "That makes sense. If I go then Alice should be able to see the decision and inform you of it."

Alice turned to him sharply, alarm in her eyes. His face softened and he touched her face in a silent reassurance.

She smiled back.

Emily said, "ick. Lovey-dovey stuff. Look, could you wait before I'm out of the room... Garden... Whatever, until I'm far away, before ravishing each other."

Aro quirked an eyebrow at her. "They're hardly ravishing each other."

"Not the point."

Now both eyebrows rose. "Why, Emily...I do believe you are a prude."

"And I do believe you are a...a..." They waited. She folded her arms. "Quiet you."

"I will wait in the city and contact you when the decision is made," stated Alice as she turned to Aro and Emily.

Aro nodded. "In the mean time I will go back to the Volturi."

"And I'll follow you, 'cause I'm cool like that," grinned Emily, over her momentary embarrassment.

For the first time everything was as they had been in the Volturi. Peaceful. Majestic. Vampires being as they felt they should.

Perfect.

Then they came back.

Or, rather, then _she_ came back.

"Hi, everyone, I'm back," Emily announced cheerfully.

"Oh, god, not you," groaned Heidi.

"We were hoping you'd fallen down a manhole and died or something," muttered Felix.

"Fantasising it, actually," Alec told her.

"I still am," smiled Jane dreamily.

"Well, you know what I think?" asked Emily cheerfully.

"Something annoying, probably," Demetri supplied morosely.

"Probably," agreed Emily without a qualm.

"It's somewhat sad you agree to that," pointed out Aro.

"I think we should have a party!" Emily said, striking a heroic pose, as if she had come up with some genius tactic.

About half a dozen vampires said, at the exact same moment, "_no_."

Emily pouted. "You guys are no fun."

Jasper liked swimming. He was good at it, too. Not as good as, maybe, Edward, or Emmet, but good enough. He arrived at the Cullens approximately an hour and a half after he set off. Already he missed Alice. But he had a job to do.

He arrived and heard an argument taking place.

"Hey, dumb blonde, how about you get the damn door instead of hogging Nessie?"

That was, unsurprisingly, Jacob.

"Make me, dog."

Equally unsurprisingly, Rosalie.

Jasper's lips curved in a smile. He sent out a wave of calm and acceptance.

"Fine," snapped Rosalie, calmer but still annoyed. "Come on, Nessie, it's the smelly dog for you."

Nessie giggled as she was handed to Jacob. She was completely able to walk now but preferred being held.

"Come on, Nessie, let's get you away from the evil blondie."

Rosalie opened the door, smiling genially. "Jasper. Good to see you." She scanned the space around him and her smile slipped a little, replaced with surprise. "Alice not with you?"

"Not at the moment," he replied. "May I come in?"

"Jasper, this is your house too. Of course you..." Rosalie looked alarmed. Her smile melted off her face completely. "You wouldn't ask unless something was wrong."

Suddenly the front room was crowded. Behind Rosalie was Emmet, Esme, Carlisle, Bella and Edward. Jacob followed a little after.

"Is it Alice?" asked Esme frantically.

"No. Nothing is wrong with Alice."

There was a general releasing of tension, subtler amongst the vampires and werewolf than it would have been with humans.

"What is it, then?" asked Carlisle. They were still wary. "Come in, first. Making you stand out here is rude."

They all backed off and let him inside.

He began with, "I'm relieved I caught you all together like this."

It came tumbling out of it like water from a burst dam but, somehow, the insubstantial words had more weight than the water would.

The first person to speak after he had finished was Carlisle. Very carefully he said, "so Aro and this..._Empath_ want to come here?"

It broke the spell which had fallen upon them with the sound of Jasper's words.

"That vampire guy?" exclaimed Jacob. "Hell, no! I mean, it's not my decision, but-"

"For once the wolf is right," barked Rosalie furiously. "Do you remember what he tried to do?"

"It's a bad idea," Edward said certainly. "Even with what I've seen in your memories, I think it's a bad idea."

"Wouldn't this threaten everyone?" asked Bella with large, anxious eyes.

"Unless he wants a fight," snarled Emmet. "He should _stay away_."

"I don't know..." Esme frowned anxiously.

Carlisle was silent.

"Carlisle?" asked Jasper. "What are your thoughts?"

"What is this Empath girl like?" he eventually asked gently.

"Carlisle," exclaimed Edward. "You can't be _considering_ this."

"We should all be considering this," admonished Carlisle. "Even if matters like this we can not just reject the matter out of fear."

This gave them all pause.

"You must admit that there is an element of danger," Edward pursued seriously.

Carlisle nodded. "Tell me, Jasper, this girl, does she seem able to prevent Aro from doing anything dangerous?"

He paused. Jasper ran through his memories of Emily for Edward's benefit. "I can't tell. I have only Jasper's memories to go from. No offence, Jasper. I can't really tell anything about her without any more knowledge."

"Then it is clear to me what we've got to do," Carlisle stated firmly. "Before making this decision I've got to see Aro again and assess the impact this Empath has on him myself."

There was an uproar.

Everyone but Jasper and Carlisle himself voiced their objection.

Even Nessie did this time, crying out that she didn't want him to go.

But Carlisle and Jasper stayed with their gazes locked, something invisible passing between them, something which had nought to do with magic.

Eventually Jasper calmed everyone down.

They fell silent.

"Do you want me to ask them to promise your safe passage?"

Carlisle nodded. "That would be best."

"Carlisle, even with your generosity, how can you expect him not to..." Edward trailed off.

"Peace, Edward," Carlisle said to him, smiling. "I trust Aro enough for this."

"As do I," agreed Esme firmly, taking her husband's hand in her own. "I will come."

Carlisle looked at Esme in surprise. "Esme, are you sure?"

"I'm sure you aren't going without me," she told him firmly.

Carlisle just smiled.

"Shall I ask safe passage for both of you?" asked Jasper.

"Please," nodded Carlisle, still holding Esme's hand. "And we will both assess Aro and the Empath."

Jasper nodded and left, as always, wishing he could spend some more time with his family.

But, as always, he felt relieved to be going back to Alice.

"So Carlisle and his wife will come?" asked Aro, his eyebrows raised.

"If they are granted protection," nodded Jasper, Alice beside him.

"Sounds great," Emily said happily. "The more the merrier."

Aro thought it over and the rest of the Volturi watched. Eventually he nodded. "This will be an interesting reunion."

"So the protection is granted?" Jasper said, wanting to make sure.

"It is."

"Then I will tell them straight away." Jasper and Alice vanished.

Emily giggled. "This is going to be fun, isn't it?"

"Perhaps," Aro replied.

"I'm sensing some issues here. Did I mention how much I _love_ issues?"

"Yes," Aro told her. "I believe you did."


	10. Revelations

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Ten**

Revelations

"I still think we should have a party," Emily told them as they waited for Jasper and Alice to tell their adoptive mother and father of the guaranteed safety Aro had granted them, and for Carlisle and Esme to come.

"Of course you do," Aro said, completely unsurprised. "Probably with plenty of the frozen dairy food you are continually harping about."

She glared at him. "I thought you said you had to touch people to read their minds."

"I do. But one does not have to be a mind reader in order to guess what you are thinking. As long as it is either excruciatingly annoying or has something to do with ice cream, or possibly both, it's quite easy to predict what you are about to say."

"Heidi, I'm hungry, get me some ice cream," commanded Emily.

"Proving my point," continued Aro without looking around and without any inflection of voice.

Emily looked around. "Where's Heidi? _Probably running away from you_. No, seriously, she isn't here."

"Hunting," answered Aro calmly.

"Oh." Emily seemed about to say something, but changed her words at the last minute. "I still think we should have a party."

"Only if it's celebrating your death," Alec chimed in. It was difficult not to get involved with arguments with Emily. She was like a destructive whirlpool. First, you had to look. Then you found yourself careening towards it and unable to stop.

She laughed at this. "Silly, then how would I be able to dance?"

"...Dance?" asked the younger vampire. "...Just _how_ does that fit into the conversation?"

"Yes, dance," Emily said victoriously, striking a heroic pose, completely ignoring the latter question. "Dancing is a very important part of parties, you know. For one, it's great for physical fitness. For another, it's almost as cool as ice cream!"

It took Aro a moment to work out what was going on.

Was Emily..._Lecturing_ them?

On _dancing_ of all things?

"There are many types of dance," Emily continued like a demented university professor. "Modern versions include stuff like hip hop, which is always fun, shuffle, which is fun too, and jump style, which is even more fun than the other too."

"...And you're telling us this _why_ exactly?" inquired a confused Jane.

Emily ignored her. "Then you get the older styles of dancing. Disco is kind of crap, I have to say. Swing, though, that's fun. The Charleston is great." She gasped. "I know! We should all do the Charleston! And we have to do it to Jazz music, because that's the only way to do the Charleston. In Berlin. Because Berlin..._Ah_, Berlin is great. Let's all go to Berlin and do the Charleston there. And Cabaret, because I love doing the can-can. That's it! We're all going to Berlin and having the party there."

"We are _not_ going to Berlin for a party," declined Aro firmly. Echoes of agreement were heard from all corners.

"Oh, come on. Berlin is fun! Berlin is the best place for dancing! I mean, it was better in the twenties...Much better in the twenties, before that fool Hitler took control. Silly man stopped Cabaret. Me, I think he was just chucking a hissy because he couldn't dance to save his life."

They stared at her.

"Did she just say..." began Jane.

"...The twenties?" finished Alec.

"As in, nineteen twenty?" asked Felix.

"I'm an Empath. It means I get your long life too. I ran into a vampire when I was kind of young and I've been like this ever since," she explained jauntily, still cheerful at the thought of dancing at Berlin. "As I was saying, Berlin was great in the twenties."

"Is that so?" murmured Aro.

"Uh-huh. Let me see...What was the best decade..." She mused it over. "Hm. Present day is kind of fun, but it doesn't really compare to a couple other times. Nineties kind of sucked. Eighties...Ah, I laughed at the eighties. It was hilarious. Everyone with their funny hair and funnier dancing. Seventies was funny too. Sixties was _great_. The Beatles! Man, those guys were _awesome_. I met them, actually. Nice guys. Bit big-headed, and one of them...Was it the drummer? Might have been... He was a bit of a bastard. I was _so_ sad when Lennon got shot, he was my favourite.

"Where was I...Fifties. Fifties were so-so. The end of it was fun, the beginning not so much, as everyone was too busy being miserable after the war. Forties were actually fun. World War Two was great. At first, everyone was trying to pretend this guy called Hitler wasn't getting ready for war...Well, that was more the thirties, but you get the idea... It's always funny to see entire nations in denial. Then he actually attacked and it was a great big moment of 'whoopsie, our mistake!' I think I laughed all through the second world war. Hitler was always great to make fun of. Especially in England. I spent quite a lot of time in England around then. I was in and out. I stalked Churchill for a while...My gosh, I practically _worship_ that guy. We would argue for hours...And then he would kick me out of his country. He was usually drunk at about that time and told me it was my fault for being so annoying that he had to drink so much that he forgot I was there. Never worked, of course. He said I was also the reason he was a sexist, and happy to admit it. Something about how if they had a woman army made of women like me then the enemy would attack harder just to shut them all up and _that_ was why women should stay off the front line...He was the Prime Minister of Britain but he was still a complete bastard." Emily smiled as she gazed off into the distance, misty-eyed with reminiscence.

"...And you're saying this is awed tones of admiration?" questioned Aro.

"Oh, yes. He helped make me who I am."

"And, just for that, if he were still alive, I would kill him," muttered Felix.

"Thirties were _awful_. The depression mad everyone sad. I was bored out of my mind for almost that entire thing. I think I just went to Antarctica to check on the penguins out of boredom. They were fine, by the way."

"...What?" asked Demetri.

"The penguins. No global warming or anything back then. But back to the _twenties_...That was an era! Man, I just wanted the twenties to go on forever! Everyone was partying! I was in America at that time. Prohibition, the aftershock of women getting the vote, the Charleston, _everything_ happened in the twenties! In America, anyway. I remember that was when I first tried to drive a car. Good times. I think I almost ran over the president, which is always fun. The bodyguards made a bit of a fuss over it but then I accidentally almost ran over them too and drove off." She chuckled for a moment.

"The first decade of the twentieth century I think I spent in...Where did I spend it in...I think I sort of just hung around in Africa for that whole thing, in some of the native tribes. They were kind of fun. And I went to Mexico. Mm...Tacos.

"Hm...Last few decades of the nineteenth century I spent in Europe. Italy was kind of stuffy at that time. The unification of Italy and all that. South hated the North, North hated the South and they spent most of their time bitching about each other. Germany was okay, I guess. It unified around that time, too. Personally, I just think they saw Italy do it and wanted to copy them. That's something like what Hitler did...I think a year before or after Italy Germany unified. Some guy called...What was it? Ottoman? No, wrong guy... Bismark, that's it! He helped unify them." Her face changed. "I have to say, that guy annoyed me. Yeah, he was great and unified Germany, blah, blah, blah, but he was just too up himself, you know?"

"...I'm sure," Aro managed.

"Those centuries -the seventeenth through to about the nineteenth were all kind of dull. I had to wear a dress for most of it. Unless I pretended to be a guy. Being a guy was fun in those days. You got to do anything you wanted and no-one cared. I think I hung around Britain and England for those days. It's funny because every single person in England was totally up themselves. I always had a laugh saying how the French people did some things better. Then I went to France and said the opposite. Good times. Scotland was probably my favourite around that time. I played the bagpipes for a while. I was pretending to be a man at that time but I still got to wear a skirt. I mean, call it a kilt for as much as you want, but a skirt is a skirt. Of course, the Scottish people kind of objected when I said that...And called them all men in skirts...And when I called them women in skirts... A few times I had to run off to Wales. Wales was kind of fun.

"Napoleon...That guy was _short_. I mean, you look in text books and it just says what he did on the battlefield. But he was like a Jack Russell. He was tiny, but all the meanness was concentrated because of it. He was Napoleon, Midget Extraordinare! I called him that a few times. He went bright red and shouted a bit at me in French. I laughed. I think he tried to kill me...Quite a few times, actually. Do you know he was defeated by rabbits one time?"

"...He...was?"

"Uh-huh. He wanted to go rabbit hunting so they got all these rabbits together for him. Unfortunately they got tame ones. So the poor starving rabbits saw Napoleon and ran at him. Imagine this giant wave of hungry rabbits chasing this Midget man..." She giggled. "Good times."

"Hm...What else happened? Oh, there was the Holy Roman Empire, which kind of sucked. There was...That guy, I think he was Persian? I was in and out of China a lot. China's always fun. I mean, have you ever _heard_ their history? _Everyone_ _dies_! Well, considering it was ages ago, everyone would be dead anyway, but _everyone kills each other_! It's hilarious. Hm...I think there was a female Emperor once...She was fun. I met her. She was a whore. Literally. She was the Emperor's consort before becoming the main man...woman herself. But she was also a bit of a bi-yatch. She tried to have me killed...Every time she saw me. Wu Chao, I think her name was. Although her killing me may have something to do with the fact that I called her a whore every time I saw her...Yeah, that's probably it.

"And, you know who were great partiers? The Romans. It was all very carnal, though. Food and...other stuff.

"What else...I met Genghis Khan. He smelled. And I mean _smelled_. Hm...The Ancient civilisations were fun. Apart from all the little African, Native American, Aboriginal and all those little tribes. Life quickly got boring there. Ancient Egypt was good fun. Although they kind of shouted at me a bit when I broke off the Sphinx's nose..."

"I was always wondering who had done that," muttered Demetri.

Emily looked vaguely guilty. "Yeah...That was kind of me...But it was an accident! Don't listen to anything the Pharaoh and everyone else says! I was _not_ drunk at the time! Just...Tipsy. They're different things. And I thought it was re-attachable! It's not my fault that, with all their other advancements, they'd couldn't make a giant stone nose come off and go back on."

"Of course not," Aro replied soothingly.

"Then there were the Greeks...Ah, Ancient Greece. That was fun. Lots of smart guys walking around. They were funny.

"And then there are the Mayans.

"Oh. My. Freaking. _Gosh_. You have _not_ partied unless you have partied with the Mayans. They were the party experts. More than the freakin' Romans and _that_ is saying something. In fact, all of the Mayan era was basically one big super party. They'd have parties for days on end. I mean, these days you think a party is big if it goes into the morning but in _those_ days that would have been like a party-ette. Compared to the Mayans, everyone today are party _virgins_. They would have parties which would go for like a week, and _they_ were the small ones. They lived to party. They only stopped so they could sacrifice someone and then prepare for the next one."

"Is that so?" asked Aro through nearly still lips.

"Yep. There would be musicians everywhere and the dancing...Ah, the dancing was fun. There'd be people...Uh..._Procreating_ in the corners and sometimes even on the dance hall. Hell, there'd be people _giving birth_ on the dance floor and everyone would be watching and cheering and cheering even more when it was done and they'd all go back to dancing again, even the woman who had just given birth." She sighed contentedly. "What a great age. I miss the Mayans. Sure, there are people who say their ancestry can be traced to Mayans, but they're not the real Mayans. Only Mayans can _really_ party." A look came onto her face. "That's what we'll do! Screw Berlin, we're going to Ancient Maya!"

"And how do you suppose we do that?" questioned Aro with a quirk of his eyebrow.

"I don't know. Rip off Doctor Who and steal his time machine."

"Who is Doctor Who?" asked Jane in confusion.

"...No-one," Emily said shiftily.

A question had occurred to Aro. "Just how old are you?" he inquired.

Emily looked at him. And she smiled.

If he had not seen her eye colour he would have sworn that mysterious, old smile was Maya's.

"Guess," she challenged sweetly.

"Excuse me?" The human receptionist had entered. "The four Cullens have arrived."

"Oh, good," commented Emily. The moment had passed.

"Let them in," conceded Aro. Gianna inclined her head in a nod and exited. A moment later the four golden-eyed vampires appeared.

"Alice!" cheered Emily, giving Alice her customary exuberant hug. She gave one of the same to Jasper. "Jasper!"

"You must be Emily," Carlisle said to her. He held out his hand. Emily looked at it for a moment before laughing and hugging him too.

He gave a slightly strangled gasp. "Your...Scent..."

Esme looked vaguely alarmed as Emily hugged her too. She too looked horrified for a moment before patting Emily on the back.

Emily smiled at the two new comers. "Say, do you two like ice cream?"

"Uh..."

"Say yes," urged Alice.

"Of...course," Carlisle answered.

"Sure," nodded Esme.

"Then we'll be friends," affirmed Emily. "Would you like to come party with us? We're going to go to Ancient Maya and party for a week. Right, Aro?"

"I think it's impossible."

"Oh...Well, we'll do it anyway. And then we'll party in Berlin, too!"

"It is good to see you again, Carlisle," Aro said to him. "And you as well, Esme."

Carlisle inclined his head to Aro. "Yes, it is good to see you as well."

"Uh-oh," Emily giggled childishly. "I'm sensing i-ssues." She deliberately prolonged the word.

"How is your family?" Aro inquired.

"My family is good, thank you for asking," replied Carlisle.

"And the little one?"

Carlisle stiffened a little. "Nessie is good as well. And how is your family?"

"We have, I must say, been better," Aro admitted, shooting a glance towards Emily.

"So, you name is Carlisle, right?" Emily asked Carlisle brightly.

Carlisle nodded. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

She smiled. "Aw, you're so nice...Not like Heidi. I wish she was in the room. It's so much more fun to tease her when she's here...But I suppose I'll just have to save it."

"You...Tease her?"

"Yep. Me and Heidi are best buddies. Or, we will be, when she gets past this nasty habit of being a Whorey Slutmuffin."

"...Oh," replied Carlisle. There was really nothing else he could say.

"And you," Emily grinned as she turned to Esme. "Are Esme."

"Yes, I am," agreed Esme, smiling at the girl.

"I'm Emily."

"I know," replied the vampire woman. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Good things, of course," grinned Emily.

Esme paused.

"Of course," she replied, a moment too late.

Emily refused to notice the pause.

"Tell me, Aro, how did this situation come about?" inquired Carlisle curiously. Aro began explaining it to him. Emily noticed something as she watched. With Carlisle, Aro was...different. She couldn't put her finger on him but he just seemed to be more receptive than when he was speaking to her.

'I think I can explain that,' whispered Maya in that place in their shared minds which acted as a bridge between them. 'It's because Carlisle is descended from Aro's mother's family.'

_Yay, flashback!_ Cheered Emily.

Aro, as a vampire, had always kept tabs on his family from when he had been a mortal. The family that he knew of, at least. The nobles of his mother's house had descended from their high place in society, then risen again. They had lasted through the ages. Aro had abandoned some of his family when they had become so far gone from their original place of birth that he could not think of them as family any longer.

Carlisle's father had been like these, but different.

He had left, with his branch of the family.

But he could not stop thinking of them as family.

That was, until that night.

_Carlisle's father had been a young boy. Aro had thought him asleep. It was the day before he had left. Aro had been walking through the silent halls of their dwelling, night casting a cloak of silent darkness over all. He had peered in on each of the slumbering family members, wondering at the changes in some, wondering at the lack of the same thing of others._

_He had not seen this new child yet, having not checked up on the family for almost a decade. He had thought the child asleep._

_But, when the child's eyes opened, he had been proven wrong._

_He could have run away._

_But he didn't._

_Perhaps it was for some deep-seated urge for revenge over the family for casting him out all those generations ago, but he had leant down to the terrified boy and looked at him closer. The boy had been terrified._

_He smiled, showing his teeth._

_The boy screamed._

_He left._

_Perhaps that had been what had sparked off the desire to track down monsters. The desire to defeat them. Perhaps that had been what had led to everything else._

_The boy grew up to be what he was, married, had a son of his own. Aro heard whispers of this from other members of the family when he would pass them, touching them gently, almost accidentally, to gage what their innermost thoughts were._

_His name was Carlisle._

_Aro had, by then, become the leader of the Volturi. Volterra had become a safe place for vampires. For the right vampires, that is._

_The wrong vampires were hunted down._

_There had been one of these vampires who had offended Aro personally some time back, and had threatened their existence by making a sport of being spotted by humans, allowing them to tell others, and then murdering them. He had openly mocked Aro one time, a long time ago, but Aro had brushed it off._

_It was time to kill him._

_Aro went personally. He toyed with the vampire for a little, make him hide. He was already being hunted by humans and now by Aro too. It was Aro which made him hide, made him __starve__._

_One day the vampire could take it no longer and ran. Unfortunately for them, the humans got in the way._

_And Carlisle was bitten._

_Aro hunted down the vampire, killed him, but he could not get the image of the young man writhing from the pain as he hid himself out of his mind. He had, of course, recognised the family scent, but it was only when he cast about for some more information about him that he realised that the boy was the son of that other boy who he had frightened so long ago. He was thought to be dead._

_For a while, Aro thought so too._

_Then he came to Italy._

_Carlisle._

_What a vampire._

_His personality was passionate yet gentle, a contrast which intrigued Aro. His lifestyle made Aro scoff, but he had always possessed a deep desire to stick to his non-human diet, even if he knew it would be impossible. Aro knew it was impossible._

_But then Carlisle had, again, and again, and again, and again, proved him wrong._

_He couldn't remember being happier to be wrong._

_And, something which surprised Aro more than he said, Carlisle seemed to like him too._

_Even now Aro had no idea why. After all, they were different enough to warrant a dislike of each other._

_But Carlisle had liked him._

They had been friends.

But Aro had destroyed that with the recent happenings.

But maybe he could fix it again.

_Is that what you want me to do_? Asked Emily mentally as she watched Aro tell their story to the younger vampire, having heard Maya's version of the events. _Help them be friends again?_

'Amongst other things.'

_You know, this would be much easier if you just told me what the heck you want me to do here._

'Yes, but wouldn't that take some of the fun out of it?'

Emily smiled. _Maybe it would. But one thing which confuses me..._

'Go on.'

_How could you know all of that happened? You were dead by then._

'You forget, Emily. I am a ghost.'

_So you've been stalking him all this time?_

'Not constantly, you of all people should know that. And I would hardly call it stalking.'

_But you've been there? You didn't leave him?_

There was a pause.

'Yes.

'I was always there.

'And no.

'I never left.'


	11. Emily Does the Time Warp Again

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Eleven**

Emily Does the Time Warp Again

"It's just a step to the left… And a step to the ri-i-ight!" Emily paused, looked at Esme. "Come on, Esme, join in!"

"I… Think I'll pass, thankyou," the woman said delicately.

"Spoilsport. How about you, slutmuffin?"

"Please die in a hole."

"Naw, someone's got a case of the grumpy-bums. Carlisle?"

"No, thankyou."

"Fine, but Aro won't abandon me, will you Aro!" Emily paused with a big, expectant smile. The vampires looked at Aro. Mutely, he shook his head. "Well, when you all get fat and uncoordinated from not exercising, I will laugh."

"We're vampires," the leader of the Volturi pointed out. "We can't get-"

"Now put your hands on your hips… And pull your knees in ti-i-i-ight!"

"…You're not even listening, are you?"

"This would be slightly more bearable if you could sing," Heidi grumbled. She paused, thought about it. "No, I take that back. Even if she didn't sound like a dying cat I would still want to kill you. Repeatedly."

"Do the pelvic thrust!"

"What is she doing?" asked Alec, slightly horrified.

"I think it's called the time warp," Carlisle informed him, struggling to come to terms with the pelvic-thrusting Empath. "It's from a movie."

"And then you go in- SA-AY-AY-AY-AY-ANE!"

"SHUT UP!" yelled Heidi.

"Perhaps you should take a break, Heidi," Jane told her gently, taking the vampire outside before she had an Emily-caused aneurysm.

"LET'S DOOOO THE TIIIIIIME WAAAAAAAARP !" Emily finished with a cheer and did a flip.

Esme looked startled. "Where did that flip come from?"

"I'm as athletic as you all are, so I thought I'd do a flip. Because flips are cool."

"Oh… Okay," Emily said, slightly numbly. "So, just to make this clear, you take on the powers of those around you?"

"To varying degrees, yes."

"And you're tied to Aro because of this ghost… Maya, was it?"

"_Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you_ –ACK, NOT YOU AGAIN! Go, you're annoying…" She blinked at the roomful of sceptical looks she suddenly received. "What?"

"Hello, pot," muttered Alec. "I'm the kettle. You're black."

Carlisle was looking slightly stunned at the transformation from one entity to another. "I… see."

"You get used to it," Aro told him.

"No you don't," refuted every other vampire in the room, which consisted of Alec and Caius. All the others had left when Emily bugged them.

"So, if you're an Empath, would you be able to take up a white coat and care for humans?"

"You mean because you're a doctor? Don't know, don't care," shrugged Emily. "I mean, that's such a boring power… Healing… Pffft. I have, however, been exceptionally nice because of you." She grinned as Esme, you gave her an uncertain smile back.

"No you haven't," yelled Alec.

"What do you mean?" Emily sounded hurt. "I only called Heidi a slutmuffin once."

"Twice," corrected Aro.

"Twice," Emily continued without a pause. "I've been very nice."

Alec gaped for a moment before throwing his hands up. "I give up. I'm going to find my sister and Heidi and kill something, pretending it's her."

Aro nodded as the other vampire disappeared.

Emily looked around, befuddled. "What's got his panties in a twist?"

Aro shook his head as he turned to Carlisle. They had been quietly conversing while Esme went to talk to Emily, talking over not only the recent events but also what had come before. It was the only opportunity they'd had to properly speak for years. Considering that Carlisle was very distantly Aro's only true blood relative, Aro was grateful for the chance. If nothing else, the Empath had given him that. Aro was saddened to note that the closeness that had once been between him and the 'vegetarian' vampire was gone. "As you can see, I'm in a bit of a predicament."

Carlisle nodded. Esme glanced over to him and joined them, following some signal sent by Carlisle that Aro missed. Even amongst vampires there were those looks which only couples could read off each other.

"I'll go up and talk to Alice. She and Jasper have been exploring Italy, I think, but they said they'd be back around morning, and it's almost then now."

"Will you consider the proposition?" Aro asked hopefully.

"I must talk with the rest of my family. This isn't a decision we can make alone," he told the other. "Farewell, at least for now, Aro."

"Good tidings to you both," the other said formally.

"Bye Carlisle, bye Esme!" waved Emily cheerfully, decidedly less formal. "Make sure you come back for the party!"

"What party?" asked Carlisle, confused.

"Don't ask," Aro told him immediately. "Just hurry."

Carlisle did as he asked.

"I liked them," Emily decided. "They were a lot nicer than slutmuffin."

Aro shook his head at her mutely for a moment before speaking. "Why Maya chose you as a host I don't know. I would have thought she had better judgement. _Much_ better judgement."

"_She was the only option_."

"Ah," Aro nodded.

"Maya, stop _doing _that, damn it!" They were alone for another moment before Alice and Jasper returned.

"Alice! Jasper!" cheered Emily. To Alice and Jasper's relief, she didn't try to hug them. "Just met the 'rents. They're both nice."

"They are-" Jasper began to agree in a surprised tone, as if he hadn't expected Emily to say something so… Well, normal.

"I wasn't finished," she interrupted cheerfully. "I was going to say that they're nice, and therefore boring."

"So… You like… People who aren't nice?" he asked, shaking his head.

"Yep. Why do you think I'm stalking Aro?"

"Because of the centuries-old ghost in your head?"

"_He has a point_. SHUT UP, MAYA!" Emily shook her head, tossed back her short hair in irritation. "In any case…" A bright smile lit her face again. "Do you want to stay for the party?"

"What party?" Alice exclaimed.

"The one we aren't having," Caius interrupted sourly.

"Aw, has someone got a case of the grumpy-bums?" asked Emily. "You and Heidi should start a grumpy-bum club, and then you can be miserable together. It's good that you've stopped sulking, though."

"I wasn't sulking," he said through gritted teeth.

"Denial," sang Emily.

"I _wasn't_."

"You hold onto that denial, don't let it go. And, in the meantime… It's just a step to the left!"

"Don't start," Aro warned her casually. He'd more or less gotten used to her presence by now.

"But, Aro, we need to teach them the dance for the party!" Emily exclaimed, shocked. "Or they'll be standing around looking like even more of a bunch of tools than they do already. And that'll be something!"

Alice laughed at Emily as she came up and ruffled the other girl's hair. "You're always demanding a party of some sort. If you had your way, the world would be in a constant state of festival."

"Damn straight!" Something occurred to Emily suddenly. "Hey, new thought… How did you guys get around so quick? I mean, even air travel should take longer than that…"

"We swam," supplied Jasper.

Emily blinked before turning to Aro and pointing at them. "You see that, Aro? They won't be getting fat and uncoordinated from lack of exercise. You should take a page out of their book."

Alice's eyes went vague for a moment, but it went unnoticed by all except Jasper as someone new came in. It was Felix, and he had, with him, another vampire. "Aro?"

"Yes?" Aro straightened, changing from tired Empath-sitter to leader of the Volturi in an instant. "Who could this be?" he asked softly.

"His name's Daniel," Felix told him as he threw the offending vampire on the ground. He was a red-head, with curls as long as Emily's hair. He stood, straightened, and was about to leap on Aro when a new force bowled him over. In the next instant, Emily sat on him and grinned down at him. "Now that's just not nice."

"…What?" he asked, frowning as more vampires filtered in. Instead of the exasperated mask they had on around Emily, they now looked serious, apart from a few which evidentially took pleasure in what was about to occur, mischief written across their faces.

"Welcome, Daniel," Aro said ceremoniously as Emily poked him. It was a new twist to how they normally dispensed judgement, but if Emily was going to help instead of hinder, he didn't care what she did.

"What the hell is this human…" Daniel smelled Emily's scent. "Oh, god GET HER OFF ME!" He tried desperately not to breath.

"Another grumpy-bum!" shouted Emily, shaking her head. "This place is full of them."

"What is his crime?" asked Aro, ignoring Emily. Alice opened her mouth to say something, but Jasper shook his head. It would be best to wait until the judgement was finished.

"He slaughtered a family of humans after letting them see him," Felix replied. "And he let one go to chase, hunting him through the crowds."

Aro tutted. "That's very dangerous," he chided lightly. "What if that human had told another, or if you'd been spotted?"

Daniel looked like he wanted to reply, but Emily's scent, and Emily herself, held him down. If the vampire knew that Emily was taking his own strength and using it against him, it would have been insult as well as injury. As it was, it was still insult as well and injury because she kept poking him.

"No, we can't very well let that slide," Aro murmured, a faint note of regret in his tone.

"And the whole slaughtering innocent humans, that's bad too," Emily piped up. She was ignored.

"Emily," Aro said sharply. Emily looked at him. He tilted his head, showing that he wanted her away from the vampire. At that moment, Maya took over, taking Emily away from the vampire, sending her to stand with Alice and Jasper. Neither of them looked at the scene which was unfolding, but when Maya asked if she was going to look away, Emily thought, 'no. No, I'll watch. He's going to die. It's the least I can do.'

_This kind of justice is the thing which rules in Aro's world_, Maya murmured gently as the vampires drew close to the man, who tried to run. Heidi blocked him with a vicious snarl, happy to release some of her anger. _This kind of justice is the thing Aro_ made_ to rule. Without it, it would be anarchy_.

'And, considering you raised him, this justice must have come from you.' Emily felt Maya's surprise. In a quiet voice, she reminded the old ghost, 'I act like an idiot. You forget how it was before Aro. I'm not stupid. It's just amusing to act like one.'

_I suppose not_. With that, Maya allowed Emily to see how she had taught Aro to be just, and to be harsh.

_Aro was just a boy, younger than Emily had seen him, except for the first time Maya had found him. It had to be only a few days after that. Maya watched from around the corner as he found a dog lying in the street. The dog had a litter of puppies, just born, all dead, lying under it. It was mad, and tried to bite Aro. Aro kicked it from fear, and then again. He did it once more, saying, "that's why you don't bite me, dog!" With that, he swaggered off, satisfied, while the dog snarled gently after him. Maya came up to the dog, saw it was dying, and gave it a swift end._

_A few days later, Aro came to Maya without the fruit she requested, covered in bruises, sobbing. "Maya, these men, they hit me."_

"_What did you do?" she asked sharply._

"_I… I told them that their fruit was too expensive."_

"_But that wasn't all, was it?" Maya's gaze was direct, pinning the boy down when he wanted sympathy, giving him scrutiny instead._

"_I… Told them the fruit was rotting, and that they should be arrested." Aro looked away, ashamed. Maya grabbed his chin, forced him to look back at her. He began crying again._

"_Aro, you are happy, and arrogant, because you no longer live a bad life. But don't let that cloud your judgement. Be fair, Aro. Be harsh, but fair." With that, Aro stopped crying._

As the vampire was ripped to pieces in front of her, Emily's gaze drifted towards Aro. _Harsh but fair_.

'But he forgot again, didn't he?'

_He let his desire for power get in the way of justice_, Maya said in a chilling tone. _That is unforgivable_.

'Those people who hit him,' Emily said, musing. 'You asked them to, didn't you? To teach him a lesson?'

Maya remained silent, but that was enough.

'I think that's called child abuse.'

_There was no such thing back then_.

She watched until the vampire was completely destroyed. Afterwards, the others began drifting out, a few conversing gently amongst themselves. Aro was talking to Felix, presumably going into more depth about the vampire. Alice waited a few more minutes before speaking up. "Excuse me? I have a vision to share with you."

Aro stopped, as did a few of the others. "Yes, Alice?"

"Carlisle and Esme will talk to the others when they get there, but it's already been decided who will come next."

"And who will this be?"

"Rosalie and Emmett."


	12. Emily's Competitions

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Twelve**

Emily's Competitions

"Are they here yet?"

"No."

"Are they here yet?"

"No."

"Are they here yet?"

"No."

"Are they here yet?"

"_No_."

"Are they here yet?"

"_No_."

"Are they here yet?"

"_No_!"

"Are they here yet?"

"NO."

"Are they here yet?"

"_NO_."

"Are they-"

"I WILL RIP OUT YOUR OVARIES AND FEED THEM TO THE NEAREST SQUIRREL!" bellowed Heidi.

Emily started, staring at the infuriated vampire for a moment before saying, "uh… Heidi? You know squirrels don't eat meat, right?"

Heidi let out a frustrated scream and began hitting her head against a wall. Jane and Alec restrained her.

"Heidi," Aro gently reprimanded. "Some decorum, please."

"She just…" Heidi's eye twitched slightly.

"Are you feeling okay, slutmuffin?" asked Emily, concerned. "You've been acting kind of weird."

If Heidi could have had an aneurysm there and then, she probably would have. "Ever since those two excuses for vampires left, probably to escape you, you have been getting steadily more and more irritating. I've been back for_ five minutes_. Five minutes and I want to kill something. No, not just something._ Something_ is too vague. You. I want to kill you. And I want to kill you slowly and painfully. Very painfully. Do you know about Japanese torture methods? Do you know about Medieval torture methods? I've learned them. I haven't practised them for a while, but I'd be happy to take out some of my old skills and try them on you. All of them, in fact." She panted for a moment, strung between Alec and Jane.

"I told you Esme was making me nice," sang Emily.

Alec looked at Aro. "Would you like us to take her outside, Aro?"

He nodded.

"Too late," sung Emily happily.

"Why is that?" asked Aro, frowning.

"Don't listen to her, she just wants to be annoying," muttered Jane.

"I think you're still grumpy over the whole, I can use your powers on you, but you can't use them on me, thing."

Jane didn't reply.

"Naw, grumpy-bums… I think you need a time out."

Jane sighed. "I can't even get angry any more. I just get… Tired. So, so tired."

Heidi smiled. "I can."

"What I mean is that it's too late, because you remember the whole I'm-an-Empath thing? Alice's powers stuck around, and they're showing me that she and some more friends should be popping around the corner right about… Now."

With that, the human receptionist ushered four figures into the room. Two of them were the familiar faces of Alice and Jasper. The newcomers comprised of a bulky man and a statuesque, pretty woman.

"Alice! You came just in time to be late."

Alice blinked. "Late for what?"

"For Heidi's tantrum. She screamed and everything and tried to mash her brains over the walls. It was hilarious."

"_I'm standing right here_."

Emily shook her head sympathetically. "I think something's making the poor thing loose it."

"That would be you," said Heidi, Jane and Alec at the same time.

Emily shook her head. "The insanity is spreading…"

The couple had come in wearing neutral expressions, but now they just looked confused. "Alice?" asked the woman. "What is this?"

Alice knew precisely what she meant, that the woman wasn't asking who Emily was, but instead why Aro and the others were letting this seemingly-human insult and ridicule them as opposed to tearing out her throat. "Rosalie, Emmett, I want you to meet Emily the Empath. I told you about her, remember?"

"Yes, but you didn't say…" Rosalie drew off as Emily bounded forward eagerly and hugged her. "What the- _Ack_."

"Rosalie!" exclaimed Emmet, worried. He reached for Emily. The Empath either deliberately or otherwise mistook the gesture and hugged him too. "_Ohgodthesmell_."

"Yay, more friends!" Emily cried obliviously, stepping back and look at them. She pointed at Emmett. "You are Emmett."

"Uh…" Emmett replied.

"You also look like a mountain."

"…What?"

"You're big and strong!" Emily grinned.

"Oh." Emmett smiled at her flippantly. "Thanks. You know, you're really not as bad as everyone says." All the Volturi vampires in the room except Aro gave him evils. This was only Alec, Jane and Heidi. The rest had left after the tenth ,'are they here yet?'

"And you." Emily pointed at Rosalie next.

Rosalie raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"

"Remind me of slutmuffin."

Rosalie blinked slowly, just once. "…What?"

"Slutmuffin." Emily jerked her thumb back at Heidi. "You're both pretty."

Heidi stared at her. "Did you just pay me a… _Compliment_?"

"Thankyou," Rosalie said with a half-smile. It was a half-smile instead of a full one because she still wasn't sure what exactly was happening. Carlisle, Esme, Alice and Jasper had all done their best to explain Emily, but it came nothing close to the real thing.

"In fact, you're so pretty you guys should have a beauty contest!"

Rosalie flipped her hair back. "Thanks, but I'm not-"

"Don't thank her," Heidi said in a flat tone. "It's not an invitation."

"Slutmuffin has it right!" Emily stated, exuberantly tilting her chin up and placing both hands on her hips. "It's _not_ an invitation!"

"What do you mean, not an invitation?" asked the newest female Cullen.

"Emily," warned Alice.

"Invitation implies choice in the matter, something neither of you have."

Emily disappeared. Ten seconds later, she came back, although she had a different eye colour.

"Did she just run away… Like a vampire?" asked Emmett, struggling with the concept. "But she's human."

"No she's not. You know how I know?" asked Heidi. Alec and Jane had released her by now. "If she was, she'd be dead."

"_I apologise for my disappearance_," Emily said, but it wasn't Emily any more. She smiled at Rosalie and Emmett and inclined her head slightly. "_My name is Maya. I share this body with the one you know as Emily_."

"We heard about you," Rosalie said quietly. "What are you? A ghost? I don't think Carlisle and Esme mentioned."

"_That's because they don't know."_ With that, Maya blinked. Blue changed to hazel. Emily's smile appeared. "Hi, guys, I'm back. I guess you met Maya."

"Why did you run off just now?" Aro inquired, frowning slightly.

"I was getting this!" Emily showed them a blackboard she had fetched form somewhere, complete with a pen and paper. "It's what I'm going to use to judge you!"

"Is she serious?" muttered Rosalie, glancing at Aro.

"Unfortunately," he replied in a casual tone.

"Ladies and gentleman, I would like you to cast your eyes over to contestant number one, Heidi, otherwise known as slutmuffin. Look at how pretty she is, with pale skin and dark hair… Look at how tiny that skirt is! Showing off those long legs… Longer than mine… Which I hate her for… But never mind, for she is a slutmuffin, and that makes everything better!"

"…I'm just going to hit my head against the wall some more," Heidi decided. Jane and Alec restrained her again.

"Now, delighted viewers," Emily boomed in her announcer's voice, despite the fact that there were less than ten people in the room. "Take your eyes over to the other side, to our other contestant, Rosalie! Pale too, but this one's blonde! Less slutty than slutmuffin, which automatically makes her a winner of the beauty contest!" Emily threw the items she'd retrieved to the side and clapped for a few seconds by herself. "Well done, Rosalie."

"Uh…" Replied the stricken beauty-contest winner.

"Welcome," Aro stated before Emily could say something else. "To our problem."

"Will you stop calling me a problem!" exclaimed Emily.

"I don't believe the three of us have had the opportunity to properly get to know one another," Aro continued, ignoring Emily, who began pouting. "We encountered each other only briefly."

"No, I don't suppose we have," Rosalie replied hesitantly, like she hadn't expected the leader of the Volturi to be pleasant.

"You two are a part of the Cullen family? Have you been with them for long?"

Alice laughed slightly. "None of us have even been alive long, by your standards Aro."

"True enough, I-"

"I have!" exclaimed Emily, eagerly to get involved in the conversation again. "Hey, are one of you, like, really strong or something?"

Emmett smiled. "I am like a mountain, after all."

"So you're definitely strong?"

"Emmett, I wouldn't brag around Emily," Jasper warned, silent up until this point.

Alice smiled. "No, no, Emmett, brag all you want. I think this will be an interesting experience." She was smiling broadly, a twinkle in her eye.

"Do you want to have an arm wrestle?" asked Emily eagerly.

Emmett blinked. "With who?"

"Like I said, a mountain. Big, strong, not that bright. With me, silly."

"But you're…Small."

"Sizist."

"And female."

"Sexist."

"And human."

"Racist. And I'm an Empath, not a human." Emily walked to a small table nearby, kneeled, and put her elbow onto it. "Come on, Mountain Man."

Emmett shook his head, laughing slightly. "You really want to do this?"

"Yeah!" cheered Emily.

Emmett through up his hands. "Fine!" He strolled over to Emily casually, kneeling, glancing at Rosalie, who was smiling now. He placed his elbow on the table, luxuriously finding a spot where he was comfortable. Slowly, he reached forward, let Emily take his hand. "Now, I'm warning you, this may hurt, but I'll try not to-"

A second later and the back of Emmett's hand crashed into the table. Rosalie's jaw dropped. Alice and Jasper hid their grins.

Emily jumped to her feet and began jumping up and down. "Yay! I won! You hear that Rosalie? I beat Emmett! Now we're both winners. Are you proud, vampy boy?"

Emmett tugged his hand free of the table. There was an imprint in the wood that hadn't been there before. "What," he began. "Just happened?"

"You just finished meeting Emily," Alice informed him.

Rosalie and Emmett stayed for another half hour before they decided to leave, having seen enough. Jane, Alec and Heidi had left soon after Emmett's defeat. The bulky vampire had cornered Emily a few more times, challenging her to more tests of strength. The last got him thrown into a wall. Jasper calmed him down after that. Rosalie and Emmett talked with both Emily and Aro. They were surprised to find that they preferred talking to the latter, probably because Aro tried to be gentlemanly, and Emily was just annoying. As they spoke, a question occurred to Emily.

'Maya?' she thought.

_Yes_?

'Aro… He was born in a servant family, was an orphan, right? So why is he such a gentleman now?'

_That is something not even I can figure out_, the other being replied. _I have no instance where he just began being so courteous. He just evolved that way_.

'And then he became creepy, too,' Emily thought with dark amusement.

She felt Maya's sad agreement rocking through her head.

'But I think that's changing, you know?'

_I hope so_.

Eventually, Emily and Aro bot escorted the two Cullens out of the Volturi's home. Rosalie kept shooting glances at Emily. Finally, she asked, "Emily. I was told, before, that you turned into a vampire, just briefly." Alice had been the one to tell Rosalie.

"Yeah? I'm an Empath. It's what I do."

"So could you turn a vampire into a human?" Rosalie tried to go for a casual tone, but instead she came across as hollow, and a little vulnerable.

Emily paused for a moment before answering. "I can change because I'm an Empath. I can't pass that onto someone else." She smiled. "I'm not a disease, Rosalie. For you, I wish I was, but I'm not."

Emmett touched Rosalie's back as the vampire tried to maintain a neutral expression, and succeeded. She smiled tightly at Emily. "I'm a beauty queen now. Why should I worry about thing like that?"

"Damn straight!" shouted Emily flamboyantly.

"She'd just stopped going on about that," Aro said tiredly. "Did you have to start her up again?"

"In any case, I think I speak for the both of us when I say that you two… need help," Emmett stated, looking from Aro to Emily. "But we'll reserve judgement on whether we'll be the ones to give it. For what it's worth, I think that we can't help you. But I think I'd like to try." Rosalie nodded in agreement.

They all said their farewells, Rosalie and Emmett disappearing quickly. Alice and Jasper went with them to see them off, presumably to discuss Emily with them, a fact Emily immediately picked up on. "Do you reckon they'll be talking about us?"

"Probably," Aro commented. "I'm surprised to find that I enjoyed talking with them. Even if they haven't been the most cooperative of vampires, the Cullens are, at least, interesting." He paused, expecting Emily to come up with something completely random and out of place. Instead, he heard a snore. He turned around to find that Emily had fallen asleep on the ground without even a murmur.


	13. The Empath's Fury

**Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or Warner Brothers (including Bugs Bunny) or any of their associated fictional characters or locations.**

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Thirteen**

The Empath's Fury

Emily slept quietly on the hard ground of the Volturi compound, where she had fallen. Jane and Alec had returned, as had a few of the others, trickling in when they realised that the reason they had left was now unconscious.

They quietly muttered amongst themselves for a moment while Aro contemplated what to do. Marcus had been discussing it with him as well.

Heidi burst into the room. If she had been human, her revealingly-clad chest would have been heaving as she tried to catch her breath. As it was, she simply said, "is it true?" Her eyes went to Emily. "You managed to kill her?" Her tone was remarkably eager for such a macabre topic.

"Not exactly," Aro replied calmly. "She simply seems to have fainted, or maybe fallen asleep. I can't be certain. We can't wake her up."

"You tried to?" she asked incredulously. "This is the perfect opportunity! We can kill her now!"

"Marcus has just brought up the possibility," replied Aro.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Heidi explained with a kind of desperate hope. "If you don't want to try, then I'd be happy to!"

With that, the female vampire appeared by Emily's sleeping side within a moment and proceeded to hit her in the face with everything she had.

Emily was having a nice dream. She didn't dream often, probably because she didn't sleep often. Yes, that was it. It was kind of hard to dream without sleeping…Well, you could day-dream, but it really wasn't the same. And, besides, people tended to give you funny looks if you sort of stared in their direction and drooled a bit while in your own world, not aware that you looked like a stalker. So actual dreaming was fun. Emily knew it was a dream, of course, and knowing that fact meant she could control her dreams. There was a special kind of name for that kind of dreaming, but Emily had long forgotten it. Or never learnt it. Dreaming was dreaming, after all.

At that moment, she was having quite an interesting talk with Hitler and Bugs Bunny. Hitler was shouting at Bugs Bunny in German. Emily didn't understand German, only enough to shout certain words she found hilarious, like 'das Handy', in hugely emphasised German accents. The word meant mobile, but she only cared that it sounded hilarious. Of course, in Hitler's day, they hadn't actually been invented yet, so he never knew what she was talking about. She kept interrupting him berating Bugs Bunny by shouting 'das Handy'. Bugs Bunny began doing it too, and Emily found that hilarious. Hitler got so angry that he tried to hit Emily, which startled her, considering it was her dream. But she caught it and Hitler got so angry his head blew off and landed onto the ground, where Emily played basketball with it until Bugs Bunny began getting rough, when she decided that it was time to make him into a basketball hoop and shoot Hitler through him. She began giggling when she thought of all the interesting metaphors she could draw from that.

"What… What just happened?" asked a dazed Heidi. Aro would have liked to say that it was completely impossible for a vampire to be dazed. But Emily had the annoying habit of just making things which shouldn't have been possible, possible, and there was not a damn thing anyone could do to stop her. "Am I… imbedded… into the wall?" She began tried to prise herself free of it, a process which required the aid of three members of the Volturi.

"First, she caught your punch," Aro explained. "Then she began kind of batting you around, then tried to twist you into a strange shape, then threw you across the room."

"I don't remember that," exclaimed Heidi, shocked.

"Maybe the trauma made you forget," shrugged Aro.

"I know I want to," muttered a sullen Caius from the corner. He looked a little bit shell-shocked. "That had to be one of the most bizarre things I have ever had the misfortune of seeing."

"Ha… das Handy…" muttered Emily in her sleep, snorting slightly and rolling over. There was a moment of silence.

"Well, beating her to death isn't going to work," shrugged Caius. "But Heidi was onto something good when she said we should try to kill her while we can."

Heidi smiled evilly. "I have plenty of ideas."

Emily decided it was time to go swimming in her dream. So she turned the ice-cream world around her into a giant swimming pool and went diving into it. All was going well until she got lost. She wasn't sure how this was actually possible, considering that she had made her entire world into a swimming pool, so air should have been very close. But she kept swimming and couldn't find it. Instead, she created a surface for her to kick up from. The surface shattered with the force of her kick, but she went rocketing up through the water, to the surface, where she took in a giant breathe of air and saw a kangaroo bounding along the road which had appeared below her. She decided to ride it. Her dreams kept getting out of control, but this wasn't such a bad thing. It meant it was exciting.

The kangaroo collapsed below her as she landed on it. It turned into a giant muffin wearing a tiny bikini. Emily shook her head. "You see, that's just not decent… Muffins these days. I remembers when immodest was a skirt above the knees. Good times." She bit the muffin, but it didn't taste very good, which wasn't the usual case in her dreams. It had bits sticking into her mouth.

"GET HER OFF ME!" yelled Heidi in a much undignified manner. "OH, GOD, SHE'S GOING TO EAT ME!"

They had chained concrete slabs to the Empath's feet and thrown her into the nearest lake, leaving her as far as they could go, before ambling off. Aro had felt two things. A giant weight leave his chest, the weight which had been Emily. The feeling had been somewhat ironic considering how she'd been disposed of. But he had also felt a twinge of sadness. His teacher was gone forever now. She wouldn't be back after this. Heidi had been particularly exuberant. But then, their highly skilled ears had detected a crack. By this point, most of the Volturi had joined in the task of attempting to dispose of the Empath. As one, they all turned in the darkness of the night, to face the lake as something shot out of it faster than even they could see. That something landed on Heidi, the weight of it making her immediately collapse. That something turned out to be Emily, a little damp due to the high-speed hurtling through air, her hair sticking out because of the same thing, snuggling into Heidi. She then frowned, and muttered something about knees, before biting her shoulder. Two vampires were trying to prise her off, but it wasn't working. Another two pulled while the others worked, but this didn't work either. Eventually, they found a long stick to jab into the girl's mouth. She made a face and let go, muttering something about how the muffin didn't taste good.

Heidi looked at her shoulder, where there was now a set of tooth marks. She looked at Emily and said, ignoring the fact that the girl was sleeping and couldn't actually hear her, "I ***ing hate you."

Emily heard some foul language directed towards her by the muffin, which had tasted of bark, strangely, and gave it the finger.

Heidi let out a scream of complete rage and jumped on the Empath, but was held back by Jane and Alec, who had now gotten used to looking after the interest of their fellow Volturi.

Aro blinked slowly, sighing. "It's clear we're getting nowhere with this. Unless someone can think of an infallible way of killing her before she wakes, we're going to be facing instances like this for the rest of the night. Someone get some injectable poison from a nearby hospital." Caius left to do just that. "Heidi, fetch me something to drink. I don't want to risk waking her by leaving." Aro's thirst had been steadily increasing. He had a strong will, but even he couldn't survive on nothing.

Heidi shook herself free of Alec and Jane and nodded. "Yes, Aro."

Emily couldn't remember the last time she'd dreamt, but she remembered being in control. Even as a mortal, however many years it had been, she had always been in control of her dreams. They may be insane, but it was a propagated insanity. She did things because she wanted to. That was always her motto.

But the dreams were turning on her now.

They sucked in Emily, and changed. The muffin, the water, everything melted away and was replaced by a crowd of people.

"I recognise some of you," Emily whispered to herself. It wasn't a good thing.

"But not all," said the ones she didn't recognise, that, no matter how she tried, she could not place in her memory. There was a disturbing amount of voices. That was an even worse thing.

"You're the people…" Emily drifted off as she walked before them, looking at each of them, trying to remember who they were, and their names. She could remember none of their names. "The ones I couldn't save."

"We could have lived," said a young woman.

"Had happy lives," said an older man.

"Had families," said a young boy.

"Had lovers," said a teenager.

"If you had saved us," they all said together. There was a huge amount of them, more than Emily could count.

"How many of us have you ignored over the years?"

"I tried not to," Emily told them, sounding desperate even to her own ears. "Once I realised why I'm here, I tried to do everything I could to save you."

"But you failed," said one.

"YOU FAILED," echoed all of them.

"It didn't matter if you knew how important you are," said an elderly woman logically. "After you began partying, having fun, after you began rushing about to try and get away from how hopeless your life was, how pointless, you realised. And you failed."

"You realised that you were the one who needed to understand," said the woman's husband. "You are the Empath, you understand people, you show them the way."

"This is the only way I can," she whispered.

"BUT YOU'RE FAILING."

"And what of the deaths you caused?" asked a small, dark-skinned girl. "What of that place in the desert?"

"What place?"

_Emily_.

"Maya?" Emily turned around and saw the woman, taller than she was, blue-eyed. Her eyes were the only thing Emily could make out. Everything else was blurred, indistinct. But her eyes were large, blue and crystal clear, boring holes into Emily.

_You know this is how it is for all of us. All the Empaths, and everyone who tries to help anyone_, she told the girl, sounding the gentlest Emily had ever heard her. _We always fail somebody. You keep trying to forget, but the evidence is everywhere in the Volturi's quarters_.

Emily stayed silent for a long time before saying, "I was about to ask something silly, like how can we keep going. But it's for the ones we save, isn't it? That's why we Empaths keep empathising. That's why people keep helping people. Because it might go wrong sometimes, but sometimes it goes right too."

Maya's eyes crinkled, like they were smiling. _You've stayed too long here, and you're going to fail someone else up there. That's why you're suffering now; because, Empaths feel their pain._

"That would be it," nodded Emily. "But that's okay."

Maya's eyes titled questioningly.

Emily smiled, completely and utterly without mirth. "I think it's time for the Volturi to learn what it's like when the Empath gets angry."

For one moment, she sounded exactly like Maya.

Alice jolted after her eyes went blank, instantly getting to her feet. "Jasper… It's Emily!"

He sighed. "What's she done now?"

Alice was shaking her head. "No, no, no, Emily… Jasper, we have to get back there right now, or every single one of the Volturi are going to die."

Aro had fed. It was enough to sustain him, though hardly enough for a feast. They had injected Emily with several lethal poisons but she, irritatingly, had ignored them completely.

"She should be dead," muttered Caius after emptying the fourth syringe into her. "But her body is completely ignoring the drug. She should have been dead about fifty times now."

Then Emily woke up screaming. It wasn't the normal human screaming that they were used to. It was screaming on a vampire level, but so much more than any vampire had before, and the Volturi had heard a lot of vampires scream. It was so loud that all but Aro, Caius and Marcus had to clutch their heads in pain for several long minutes as the scream went on. At the end of it, there were several moments of complete silence as Emily panted, sat up almost calmly. She took a deep breathe, let it out. "Huh… Haven't done that in a while."

"What was that?" asked Alec, shocked. Emily moved faster than anyone could have seen, hitting him so hard and moving back to her original position so fast that they only had time to shift slightly. They stared in shock at Alec as he moved his face back, rubbing it as if it was actually sore.

"Please don't talk right now," Emily said with a grin, less of her normally manic smile and more of a primal baring of teeth. "I'm in a really bad mood. And I mean a _really_ bad mood. So, if you talk, I may just kill you. And I'm not joking."

Aro looked slowly from Alec to Emily. In that roomful of vampires, there was suddenly the feeling of being a roomful of humans, with only the one vampire: Emily.

"Does anyone want to ask me _why_ I'm in a bad mood?" she asked with that same dreadful cheer. "Anyone want to hazard a guess?" Nobody spoke. "Good, because if you'd said anything, I would have killed you. It's because of this."

Suddenly, Emily was squatting at Aro's feet, where the body of his meal lay. He'd been about to get someone to dispose of it. The body was curled up in a foetal position. Emily reached out, almost tenderly, and drew back the long hair. It was actually a young man from some pour country in the Asian region.

"You know anything about this man?" Emily continued. "He looks Vietnamese. Probably here to work, escaping a country where he has no future. His hands are rough, which shows that he's done a lot of manual labour. I'm guessing a farm worker that moved over here for the same thing. Oh… Look at that." Her tone gained even more false cheer. "A wedding band. Silver, probably not even real silver. Just a sign that he has a wife. Maybe children." She straightened. "Now they'll probably starve to death just so you, Aro, could eat."

Just then, Alice and Jasper burst into the scene urgently. "Emily," began Alice. "I know you're angry, but stop whatever it is you're about to do…"

Emily laughed wildly for several long, terrible moments. Just as abruptly, she stopped. "No. No, Alice, I love you, but _no_." She looked, point-blank, at Jasper. "And you can stop trying to calm the room down. It's not going to work." With that, she threw Jasper's power back at him, making him step back a little as he felt all his efforts go to waste. Alice stepped in front of him and Emily turned away. "Because I am an Empath, and I just felt somebody die. I just felt their desperation, fear, anxieties, saw their life flash before my eyes. I felt them die, and I felt like I was dying too, because I am an Empath and now…" She bellowed the last past, so loudly that even Aro and the others had to clutch at their ears. "**I AM ANGRY**."

"Run," Jasper said.

It took them hours to figure out a solution. Members of the Volturi went inside the room and came out battered. She was furious. In the small Italian city that night, there were tremors. The citizens of the city felt them and were scared, but nobody could figure out what was causing them. A small group of scientists would study the phenomena for a few months before leaving, still scratching their heads, to work on something they could find sense from. But the eldest of the city, the ones who'd listened to the warnings of their grandparents who had known about the creatures of the night, stayed in their houses, terrified, and hoping that the creatures would stay underground.

It was eventually Alice which came up with a solution. Out of complete desperation she went and bought some good Italian gelato, double-chocolate chip with cookie chunks. She bravely went down with Jasper, who refused to stay above while she went underground, and Emily came out quite happily, eating the ice-cream straight from the tub.

"Why are you all out here?" she asked, surprised. "I mean, it's nicer than your miserable little hallway thing down there, but still. I thought you guys were anti-sun."

There was absolutely nothing to say to this, so nobody tried. Instead, Alice simply turned to them and said, in a tired sort of voice, "by the way, Bella and Edward will be coming some time tomorrow night."

After a long pause Aro stated, "that will be an interesting night."

Emily licked some gelato off her fingers in consideration. "We should throw them a party. You know, that one you never seem to give me. In the meantime, does anyone have a spoon?"


	14. The Last Cullen Couple

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters of locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Fourteen**

The Last Cullen Couple

It was hours after Emily's explosion. She had been calmly eating ice cream in the corner of the reception while the vampires explored what had once been their headquarters. Emily had done to the building what she'd done to logic. She'd utterly demolished it. The walls had partially caved, not enough to cause the collapse of the whole building, but if Alice hadn't intervened, that would have soon become the case.

Aro waited calmly in the centre of things, listening to Marcus in his head as the other vampire shared his experiences over some vampires they'd been following. There was none he would have to destroy this week. He was slightly surprised to find an edge of relief upon hearing this. He'd always accepted the role he had to play in the Volturi. It had only taken a few decades for him to grow numb to it. There'd been a few centuries where he'd even enjoyed it, but even that had gone.

Relief was a shock, but he took only a moment to realise why it was there. He was tired. Emily had tired him.

Of course, it could have been Maya. This was the kind of thing that she did. He would not put it past her for a moment.

But that was one possibility; the more realistic one being that Emily was just wearing him down. Perhaps she had just made him go into shock or had given him irreparable brain damage. Before this, he wouldn't have believed it was possible. He also wouldn't have believed it possible to break a room of vampires. She just didn't like impossibilities, did Emily.

Giovanna was very obviously irritated, though she was doing her best to maintain a professional façade (not an easy thing around vampires) at having been kicked out of her reception, and having to sit at a little desk just outside of the elevator. She had to come down it every time she wanted to tell them something. The elevator door opened, revealing Giovanna."The Cullen couple are here."

Alice and Jasper looked around to where they'd been standing together for the last few hours. Alice had gotten Emily a large bucket of ice cream and stashed it in a cooler bag, so that kept the Empath happy and silent, the latter of which the few Volturi present were relieved for. They straightened as, from behind Giovanna, stood two figures. There was a long moment of silence. It all seemed minor to Aro now, but it had been the talk of the Volturi, the entire vampire world, for a few months. Edward and Bella, standing close together.

"Aro," greeted Edward calmly. Bella nodded slightly, large eyes worried.

"Edward," the older vampire greeted softly. "And Bella, too. I see you've thoroughly settled into your new life."

She nodded again, trying for a smile and failing. "Yes, thankyou." Her voice was quiet.

"But where is your little girl?" he asked. The two grew tenser as Aro continued, "surely you didn't leave her alone? Isn't she too young for that?"

"Renesmee is with her grandparents and extended family," replied Edward after a pause, tightening his hold on Bella. There had been a flicker of fury in her gaze when Aro had mentioned her.

"A pity I couldn't have seen her again," Aro sighed. "Though, given recent circumstances-"

"Alice, the ice-cream's gone," said a loud voice. Edward and Bella turned, surprised, to look at Emily.

"There was... Ten litres," Alice said in a surprised tone.

"And now there are none. Is there any more?" Emily looked vaguely hopeful.

"Apart from that one bit on your chin –no, a bit more left… yeah, it's gone now –no, there's no more. Sorry."

"It's okay," Emily sighed. "Ten litres is enough to make me happy." She thought this over. "For now."

"You," began Edward smoothly. "Must be Emily."

Emily looked at them, blinked. "Who are you?"

"This is Edward and Bella," Alice introduced them. "Edward and Bella, this is Emily, the Empath."

"You're the one who knocked up a human," Emily said cheerfully to Edward. He winced slightly. "And you're the vampire who used to be human, but is now cool." Bella blinked uncertainly. "And you're both my new friends!"

"Brace yourselves," Jasper warned.

Before either of the vampire couple could ask what he meant, Emily shot forward and hugged the both of them close. Simultaneous expressions of horror filtered over both of their faces. They wrenched themselves away, gasping in horror.

"Worse…" Gasped Bella. "Than Jake."

Edward just nodded, trying to breathe.

Emily looked around, confused, before she spotted them on the other side of the room. "_There_ you are." An expression of shock crossed Emily's face. "Hey, can either of your read thoughts?"

Edward looked up, startled. "That's right, I can…" he paused, frowned at her. "You have an exceptionally vivid imagination."

"I have an awful imagination," rebutted Emily. "Everything you see is the truth."

"But you… You… Heidi…" Emily sniggered as Edward tried to verbalise what he saw. He turned to Aro. "Do you mind if I take a look at the Volturi main rooms?"

Aro acquiesced with a gesture. Edward and Bella went out of the room, Emily smiling at them cheerfully.

"Nice guys," Emily stated when they'd left the room. A second later, they came back in.

"Wasn't there a room before?" asked Bella numbly.

Aro nodded slightly.

"I see," Edward frowned, looking closer at Emily. He looked closer, his head tilting to one side. "You aren't... Alone in your head."

Emily smiled at him. "Nope. There's this real slutmuffin called Maya- _don't call me that_. Stop intruding on my conversations!"

Edward gently put a hand to his head. "That is going to give me a headache." He was still thinking, however. Looking into Emily's mind was difficult. It was how everyone expected children's mind to be, in a way that they never were. Everything was coloured, as if, to Emily, everything meant so much more than it did to everyone else. Her thoughts would careen about randomly in her head, but at that moment she had deliberately thought over everything that had happened, presumably to give him an explanation. Why she'd want to do this, he didn't know. Emily's thoughts were difficult to read, simply because they were so… Strange.

But there was another being there, one which kept shifting, sometimes following Emily's thoughts, sometimes straying deep inside her mind, sometimes looking through her eyes, hearing through her ears, sometimes doing all of these and sometimes doing none, vanishing then appearing again a moment later. The one thing both of them had in common was that they were both watching, both processing everything which happened around them in a different way to most people. They watched like policemen did, people who had to read the situation carefully. They watched like snakes.

The entity, as if feeling him watching, turned and look at Edward.

_Hello, young vampire_.

Edward stiffened. Bella touched his arm carefully.

"Well, if you're really so concerned," Emily stated. "Here." With that, she cut off all of Edward's thought-reading abilities. He jolted lightly.

"What did you just do?"

"I'm an Empath," she replied. "I used her abilities," she pointed at Bella. "To stop you getting a headache. And because Maya was creeping you out. After all, you're my friends now."

"…I think I'm going to get a headache from you anyway," Edward admitted. Jasper patted him on the shoulder.

"Maybe, but you!" Emily pointed dramatically at Bella, who looked startled.

"Me?" she asked.

"Yes, you!" Emily paused.

"…Yes?" asked Bella, confused.

"You didn't do it right. You should have said, 'me' and then I would have said 'you' and we would have kept going and it would have been hilarious. But never mind." Emily paused, took a breathe and said, loudly, "you are getting a make-over!"

"…What? Why?"

"Well, someone has to have a make-over for this party, and it may as well be you," Emily shrugged.

"…Party?" Bella frowned. "What party?"

"There is no party," Aro interceded. He'd been quite willing to allow Emily to confuse someone else for a change, but now it was time to intercede.

"Of course there's a party. It's the party we're having together."

"I hardly think Bella needs a make-over for anything like that," Edward attempted to intercede.

Emily shrugged. "If you're really so bothered about it, then you can have one yourself. I can _so _see you with blue hair." Emily blinked, and her eyes changed colours. "_I think everyone in the room will agree with me when I say that it's easier to do what Emily says than to oppose her_."

Everyone in the room besides the Cullen couple agreed, including Emily herself.

"As long," replied Bella tentatively. "As you don't do anything drastic."

"You're sure?" Edward asked quietly, not sure how to handle this new being he and his wife had come into contact with. She was just… Strange.

"What's the worse that could happen?" Shrugging off the mental image of a head-full of permanently blue hair, Bella reluctantly went with Emily.

Aro stood with Edward as Emily cheerfully nattered to Bella, who tried and failed to keep up with the conversation. "How is everyone receiving the news of Emily?"

"Those who met her seemed troubled and a little… Shocked," replied Edward. "Those who hadn't didn't believe what they heard. I, myself..." He paused, shook his head as Emily somehow made Bella's hair stand completely on end for a moment before letting it fall back. It was a good thing Emily's 'mirror' was a piece of paper she'd stuck on a wall with a smiley face drawn on it. "If I'm perfectly honest, I'm still struggling to understand it."

"If you wish, I can show you why exactly she's causing us so much trouble," suggested Aro. Edward looked at the vampire carefully. "Come now, I'm not going to ask for an arm or anything in exchange. You're here to understand, but if you'd rather simply observe, then I won't force the experience on you." Aro tried not to look haunted as he said, "if I tell the truth, I wish the experience hadn't been forced on me."

Emily stopped what she was doing to say, "I can read your mind, Aro, and I'm not that bad. I'm _not_. Don't speak to me in that tone!"

"I didn't say anything," he replied dryly. He met Edward's gaze. "She's gotten your powers."

"You were thinking it," she accused before turning back to Bella. "Have you ever considered going blonde?"

"No."

"I'm sure the hubby would love it."

"No I wouldn't."

"He lies."

"No, I don't."

Emily glared at Edward. "You aren't helping."

"You don't have any hair dye, Emily," Alice pointed out from beside Bella.

"True. Let's try braids, in any case…" Emily gasped, inspired. "Omigod, surface, now, I have a great idea!"

Alice started slightly before smiling. "It's okay, Bella, we'll come with you to make sure she doesn't get too carried away."

They began walking outside, Emily snorting as they went to the elevator. "It's funny, 'cause you think you could."

"I can. I stopped you before."

"…Yeah… Well… It's because I wuv you so much!" she cheered, hugging Alice.

"That's just cruel," Jasper pointed out as Alice tried not to breathe. The elevator closed behind them.

Edward turned to Aro. "Please, if you're willing to reveal that much, I'd like to see how this all came about."

With that, Aro began thinking about everything which had happened since Emily first came to him. Edward's lips twitched occasionally as he tried not to laugh, and other times he tried not to frown, as he saw a chronicle of how exactly Emily the Empath had come to be tied to Aro. A minute after, Emily came down as Maya, demanding that Aro follow, so they had to do it outside, but Emily made them behind a wall so that Edward wouldn't see her 'surprise'. She also blocked him mentally so he couldn't read any of their thoughts, except Aro's. "And then you came in."

"I…see," replied Edward slowly, thinking.

"You really don't," Aro replied, trying not to be depressed. "She keeps going on, driving everyone in the Volturi insane –literally insane. She broke an entire roomful of us at one point-"

"I saw."

"Yes, but you weren't there. She is infuriating. She keeps demanding a party of some kind and I don't know why. Why Maya would choose her, even with no other choice, I don't know." He paused, looked back at Edward, and gave him a small, tired smile. "Then again, I suppose I'm just venting to you, which isn't very fair."

"Finished!" declared Emily happily. "You two can come around now."

In the blink of an eye both vampires were around the wall. If Edward breathed, his breath would have deserted his lungs. Bella's hair had been intricately braided in many different braids, some large, some small. They had a kind of messy order to them, entwined with tiny flowers and one large rose. A few had been left to rail down Bella's cheeks like she was some sort of princess.

"Wow, you have gushy thoughts," Emily said in disgust, shaking her head at Edward. "She looks nothing like a princess-"

"Flowers become you," Edward said to Bella gently, taking one of the braids which had been left to trail down her cheek, gently brushing the flower at the bottom.

"This is so... Gross. I actually didn't think... Shoot me now. No, seriously, where's slutmuffin when you need her?"

"Do you think so?" asked Bella.

"Of course. Everything becomes you."

Emily mimed vomiting. Alice shook her head at her and Emily contented herself with pouting and talking to Maya in her head. 'Can you believe those two? What are they, teenagers? I mean, technically, yes, but-'

_Be quiet. I'm watching_, Maya replied, slightly wistfully. This, more than anything else, made Emily be quiet.

In a better mood now, Edward put his arm around Bella and smiled at Aro. "We'll return to Carlisle and the others, now, and discuss with them what exactly we should do."

Aro inclined his head. "I will await your decision."

"Jasper and I will stay here," Alice said. "I'm too involved with everyone here _not_ to see your decision."

"We'll call just in case," Bella inserted. She smiled at Emily, happy with the girl now she'd put that small smile on Edward's face. "It was nice meeting you."

"Same to you. Until you got mushy. Now I just want to kill some kittens."

She laughed, and the two of them were on their way. Aro and Emily headed back downstairs, Alice and Jasper following. Aro wondered what the decision would be. He hoped it was a yes. All the Cullens had been especially careful not to touch him, so he couldn't tell, but he thought they would agree. He hoped they would agree, desperately so, because if they didn't then he would just kill either himself or Emily, Maya or no Maya.

The Volturi, and the rest of the vampire world could be damned, he was not staying around her for the rest of eternity.


	15. The Cullen House

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Fifteen**

The Cullen House

When Alice and Jasper had returned to the Volturi reception (their actual base was going to take some time to repair), with the news that the Cullen household had eventually decided to permit them to stay with them, Aro had almost sung with joy. Well, that was a lie, considering that he would never sing with joy… Or at all, really, but he was understandably delighted with it in any case. It wasn't just the Cullens themselves, though he was interested to see how things stood with everything which had happened before, but also the thought that soon he might be able to rid himself of the constant nuisance that was Emily.

"In fact, we can leave now, if you want," Alice told them, paying no attention to the roomful of vampires who all looked, in their own subtle way, as if they suddenly wanted to jump up and down cheering. "If there's anything you want to take, now is the time to pack it."

"I am satisfied with bringing myself," Aro told them.

"You know, if that was taken literally, then you'd have to go there naked," Emily intruded cheerfully. "Because your clothes aren't exactly you. Unless they're, like, somehow welded into your very skin… But that would be weird." She paused, thought for a moment, then broke out smiling. "Can we have a goodbye party?"

"No," said Aro flatly.

"I am going to be so-" "Censored!" "-ing glad you're going," said Heidi in a flat tone. She frowned. "And why did you shout censored?"

Emily smiled. "Because I wuv you."

"... Please die. Now."

"Naw, Heidi, I know you love me on the inside," Emily began, smiling sweetly at the vampire.

"No, I… I really don't."

"And I know how much you're going to miss me."

"No, I really won't. I would miss an ugly, demented whore more than I would miss you."

Emily laughed. "Silly Heidi, you can't miss yourself."

It took Heidi a moment to realise what she meant. "Iwanttokillyouso-" "Censored!" "-ingmuch_stopdoingthat_."

"And I know how much you want to hold that party you keep promising me." There was an accusing note in Emily's tone now. She turned to face the Cullen couple. "I'll just have to have one with you guys."

"…What?" said Jasper.

Heidi gave them a bright smile. "Good luck and good-" "Censored!" "-ing-bye."

"You've been swearing a lot lately, slutmuffin. I wonder why that could be…"

"You."

"I know! You're sad because I'm leaving, aren't you?"

There was a long pause. Heidi's eye twitched.

"Don't worry, I'll give you a parting gift before we go."

"…You what?"

"I'll serenade you, and forever document our shared love of ice cream!"

"Please don't," Heidi said, barely moving her lips.

Emily, as always, didn't listen. She dropped to one knee and clasped her hand to her chest, looking at Heidi earnestly. "Heidi, I just wanted to tell you that… YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL… YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL… YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL TO MEEEEE."

"I don't know if this is nice because you aren't insulting me for once or horrible because you can't sing," Heidi muttered, confused.

"I SAW YOUR FACE… THOUGHT 'SLUT-MUUUUUUUUUUUUUFIIIN'…"

"Never mind."

"BUT YOU'LL NE-VER BE WITH ME… 'CAUSE I'M SCARED YOU'LL EAT ALL MY ICE-CREAM!" Emily stood, gave a little bow. "Thankyou, thankyou everybody. That one went out to you, Slutmuffin!"

Heidi's eye twitched again.

Emily turned to Alice and Jasper, wiping a fake tear from her eye. "Shall we go now?"

Aro quirked an eyebrow at her and asked, somewhat dryly, "if you're finished."

"Oh, I am. Unless you want a song as well-"

"Let's go."

They walked out of the reception, every vampire in the room completely silent as they did so. When they were going up the lift, they heard a very un-vampiric sound coming from the vampires. It sounded like cheering.

"Huh, that's weird," muttered Emily. "Wonder what's got them so happy. I hope they aren't partying without me…"

As one, the three vampires sighed.

They four of them hopped on the nearest flight to America. By the end of it, the three vampires were the only ones who didn't want to brutally murder Emily. To Aro, Emily was like a disease he'd become somewhat immune to (although she was more annoying than any disease that had ever existed). Alice and Jasper wavered between some degree of affection and exasperation with the Empath. The flight attendants, pilots and other passengers, however, disagreed. First, she ate all the ice-cream. Then she went and stayed in the pilot's deck for the rest of the time, asking if she could fly the plane. The pilots kicked her out so she just annoyed the passengers for the rest of the trip. They did not enjoy the flight, except for a few of the children, who apparently thought Emily was the best thing ever. They were all under five. Aro thought this said something for Emily's mental age.

They got off the plane quickly and emerged into the night air. Alice and Jasper's car was parked at the airport so, they were able to simply get in and start driving. It would have been a problem-free section of the journey, if not for the fact that Emily was a deterrent against a problem-free anything.

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

And, finally. "Are we there yet?"

"Yes, actually," Alice answered finally. Aro had to admit to a measure of relief when he heard this. The fact that, despite the chilly air and rain, the windows were wound down as far as they could go and they were all as close to them as possible to escape Emily's dreadful stench was a factor in this feeling.

"Is that it?" asked Emily, surprised as they pulled up to the pale house. Aro's eyes skimmed over it as they stopped.

"Yeah, this is our home."

"It's pale. It is pale because it's a vampire house, and vampires are all pale? Except for the ones who aren't. Like Asians. And Africans." Emily suddenly turned to Aro with an expression of great severity. "Do you think it's because they don't eat enough vanilla ice-cream?"

Aro looked at her for a moment, struck for words.

"Welcome to our home," said a new voice. They turned, and Emily brightened.

"Hey, it's Eddie!"

"Edward, actually," replied Edward with a polite tone and a smile.

"Hey, Eddie, where's wife-i-poo? The one you get all icky about?"

"She's looking after-"

"Nessie, yeah, I see her in your mind. Cute kid. Do you feed her enough ice cream?" Emily put her hands on her hips and gave Edward a searching look. "No, I don't think you do."

Carlisle and Esme stood beside him, their smiles plastered on their faces. "Aro," began Carlisle. "It's good to see you again. Would you all like to come inside?"

"Sure," Alice stated brightly. They all went inside. Aro glanced about the place, noting how they had attempted to make the Cullen home as open and welcoming as possible. Carlisle began taking them on a tour of the house. The many human artefacts he saw were somewhat expected, though the amount of graduation ribbons framed was somewhat surprising. He would have thought, after so long, it would have become boring, but apparently the human race held an interest for the Cullens that it didn't for Aro. The picture, painted long ago, of Carlisle while he was still with the Volturi gave Aro an unexpected flicker of warmth in his chest. He hadn't expected Carlisle to still have it.

Emily of course, made a range of annoying and useless comments which he tried his best to ignore. Finally, they passed through the kitchen, ("No ice cream? WHAT KIND OF KITCHEN IS THIS?") and the tour was over.

"Now that the pleasantries have been cared for," Carlisle began again, his wife by his shoulder. Edward, Alice and Jasper had remained with them, presumably as a kind of safe-guard while the others stayed with the child in case he tried to eat her or something equally absurd. "There is a matter we must discuss."

"Sounds boring already," Emily disapproved. "Hey, Eddie, you're fast, right?"

"I suppose."

"Want a race?"

"… A race?"

"Yeah! Let's run, yeah? Through the forest! And we can be super-fast! Like, ninja-fast! Ninja-on-ice-cream -fast!" Emily stopped, gasped, said in a slow tone, "_vampire-_ninja-on-ice-cream-fast!"

"… I don't think-"

"If you don't, I'll assume it's because you're scared, and then I'll hug you to make you feel better," she promised. Edward had already gotten close enough to the stench, so he looked at the others helplessly and followed an excited Emily outside.

"As I was saying," Carlisle continued, ignoring Aro's lingering look at Emily. "There is a matter we must discuss… The one condition we have for you staying here, beside the obvious, is that you don't dine on the humans while you're here. They're all precious to us, and we would rather have none die in our care."

"So what would you have me survive on, animals? Or pre-harvested blood supplies?" A flicker of distaste passed over Aro's face, though his eyes still remained thoughtfully on Emily's previous direction.

"Either of those options," Carlisle replied.

"I thought," Alice frowned, finally catching onto why Aro was staring after Emily. "That she couldn't leave your side."

"So did I," he murmured.

Alice started. "So what's changed?"

"I intend to find out."


	16. Emily the ShapeShifter

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters and locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Sixteen**

**Emily the Shape-shifter**

Edward Cullen had thought he was past embarrassment, but now it had awakened in full-force and threatened to beat him over the head. He was being beaten in a race by someone who wasn't even a vampire. He was one of the fastest beings on earth –full stop, no exceptions- and he was being beaten. In a race. By Emily. In fact, she had long ago shot ahead of him. He ran faster, but he wasn't actually sure where she was any more. He would just have to follow her awful scent until he found her… Or, he would have, if that hadn't begun to fade too. She had to have been able to control the disgusting smell. That was the only logical explanation. Of course, it was logic too that Emily shouldn't have been able to leave Aro's side, but maybe Emily had brutally murdered logic when it had informed her that the world couldn't be made of ice cream. That would make more sense than some of the other things the Empath came out with…

Emily had stolen Edward's speed, mixed it with that of the other vampires and was running faster than she had ever run in her life. It wasn't a bad experience. She had no idea why Maya was letting her go away from Aro, but figured that it must have had something to do with whatever reason she had for chaining Emily and Aro together in the first place.

Emily laughed as she picked up a small, furry creature and began circling back. After all, she wouldn't want Aro to _completely_ forget about her.

Alice shook her head. "I'm sorry, but the future is murky right now."

"Murky?" Jasper asked, concerned.

"Is that a good or a bad thing?" inquired Esme.

"I can't tell," she replied. "I guess that not even the future can understand Emily."

"That fails to surprise me," Aro remarked. Carlisle shot him a glance. Somewhere along the line, the leader of the Volturi had developed a dry sense of humour. Perhaps, with Emily, it was either develop one or be in a permanent rage.

The door opened and, before it could shut, Edward appeared in the room. "I lost her."

They looked at him, shocked, except Aro, who wasn't surprised. "She was faster than-" began Carlisle.

"Me, yes, she was faster than me, no, I don't know why or how, I tried following her scent but it dwindled away."

"Impossible," Aro stated.

"It's possible she can control it," Edward theorised succinctly.

"If that's true then…" Aro paused in mid-sentence, wondering whether he should be furious or depressed. Pointless fury was undignifying, so he chose the latter. "She's been-"

"Toying with you all this time, yes," finished Edward, a suppressed frustration clear in his tone. "And us, as it seems."

"But where is she now?" Jasper asked calmly, trying to send a soothing impulse through the room. His attempt failed when a figure whipped through the room, laughing, and whipping out again. He coughed lightly, trying to get the stench out of his nose.

"There she is," Aro stated flatly, dropping the small, furry creature which had begun trying to gnaw of his hand after Emily threw it at him. "And there she goes. What was that, anyway?"

"A squirrel," replied Carlisle.

"That would explain the shout," Aro muttered.

"What shout?"

"It was kind of hard to hear," Edward stated. "But I thought it sounded like Emily yelling, 'lunch, Aro.'"

There was a long moment of silence. Nobody knew what to say.

'LOL,' Emily summarised in her head. 'I love modern speech, don't you, Maya?'

_Not really_.

'God, it's like you're permanently on a downer. Is this what getting old does to you? If it is, I'm staying young forever.'

_You're already old, Emily_. Emily stopped smiling. _Both in age, and on the inside, where it counts. Can't you feel it? You're getting tired. You're letting things slip. You're relying more and more on the persona you've built up because everything else is fading away_.

Emily slowed to a stop. 'And what about you, Maya? You can't really talk about letting things slip. I'm supposed to be staying with Aro all the time.'

_Not at all_, she replied, the voice in Emily's head filled with mild surprise. _You do what the lesson requires_.

'What are you, his teacher?'

_Yes._

'I thought you stopped when you left him.'

_No. Everything has been a lesson. It has always been a lesson. _

Maya looked back into the past, taking Emily with her.

_Emily would have started, if she'd had a solid form. Aro was a young man. He looked exactly like he did now, though his skin was a warm tan, his hair long and far less disciplined than it was –or would be- in the future. Having said that, he was still neater than those around him. _

_He sat around a table filled with feasting people clothes in gold and cotton, richly dressed. At the head of it sat a man and a woman, the man tanned bronze and the woman pale and beautiful. He was one of the only ones not stuffing his face. _

"_If we collect the food before the invasion," one of the men argued. "Then our troops will have enough to last them the battle."_

"_That is true," agreed another. "But we should be focused on the fact that our troops will be outnumbered and outmatched, in a land they are not familiar with."_

"_The land is mostly rural, yes?" asked Aro._

"_That is true."_

"_Perhaps we should fix both problems. If we show the farmers how much land our enemies have taken and raped and pillaged, and promise to make them a part of our glorious kingdom, ruled by one of divine status, we will get far more support," he voiced._

"_Most will not volunteer for such a duty, even then," said the man opposite him as a serving-girl poured liquid into a goblet._

"_They will if we have a demonstration," Aro replied. "After we give them this information, we give them time to decide. During this time, we will show them how dangerous our enemies are."_

"_The ones we have captured," another stated._

"_We let them go through the city, and then they will join with us."_

"_But those men are savaged –they're half-mad by now, even if they weren't to begin with," the one directly to his right said carefully._

_Aro looked at him with a simple smile. "Precisely."_

_It was then Maya turned to leave. It was the last Aro saw of her for a very, very long time._

'You just left him? You made him like that, then you abandoned him?' asked Emily with a flat voice.

_You have no room to take the moral high-ground. Just as you see into mine, I see into your mind, Emily, and you aren't as pure as you would like all to believe_.

A snarl interrupted Emily and Maya's internal discussion. She looked around curiously as, from behind a bush emerged a large, shaggy figure. A wolf emerged, looking at her curiously, far larger than any normal wolf should have been.

"Well, hell-o," Emily said with a child-like glee. "What do we have here?" An odd expression came across her face and she laughed, and continued laughing. As she did, more wolfs began to emerge, two from her right and another from her left. "Shape-changers? Oh, goodie, I _love_ shape-changers. As good as ice-cream." She reconsidered. "Well, almost as good."

The wolves were looking at her with their heads tilted, the growls somewhat uncertain now. She looked at one of them very seriously and asked, "do you like ice cream?"

As she did this, one of them came up to her and sniffed gently. There was a long moment when it froze, then almost fell over itself scrambling backwards. The other wolves flinched back as one. Emily's eyes narrowed, then a grin broke over her face. "A psychic link? That's going to be so freaking awesome! I'm so excited I'm just going… I'm just going to…" She paused, her grin vanishing, then growing even wider. "I'm just going to explode right our of my skin- and into a wolf's!" She made good on this promise as she burst out of her clothing, ripping it all, and turned into a scruffy, skinny, slightly runt-like wolf which grinned up at the others like it was thanksgiving and they'd promised her turkey.

'HEEEEEY, GUYS! CAN YOU HEAR ME?' She mentally shouted. All four of the weres flinched backwards. She imagined a long, shrill whistle. 'Hey, Fido times four! How are we all going?'

_A little decorum, please_, a more mature voice sounded.

'Decorum is for losers. I've got style. And ice cream. And that party people keep promising me but nobody gives me.'

_Nobody promises you anything, you just try and make them do it_.

"_Am I the only one seriously confused by this?_" mentally asked one of the wolves, a loud, bewildered voice which rocked about Emily's head. "_I'm hearing two voices from one body… A smelly one at that_."

'Hey! Watch your mouth!'

"_No, I hear it too, Quil,"_ said another voice, this one slightly softer.

'Same here," stated a woman's voice.

Emily grinned internally. 'Hey, that's not a guy!' She caught sight of her tail. 'Though you wouldn't know it by these things. Seriously, it's actually really… Distracting…' She snapped at it, then began running circles, trying to capture it. 'Come on, this can't be that difficult!' She ran into a tree and fell onto her back. 'There was… a tree… There.'

"…_What the hell_?" asked a fourth voice. "_She… Must be Emily. I didn't think it was possible for anyone to be like Edward described, but there's nobody else who could be this…_."

'Awesome!' yelled a slightly disoriented Emily.

"…_Weird_."

"_I hear ya, Jacob_," Quil stated. "_But, uh… What do we do with her_?"

'Hey, you're shape-shifters, right? Can you go into anything other than a wolf? O-M-G, you know what I've always wanted to be? Do you know!" Emily's form melded together, changed, until an orange and black striped cat emerged. 'A tiger! Yeah, bring it, puppy dogs!'

"_You know that we're all still bigger than you, right_?" asked the female voice, unimpressed.

The tiger looked at her, cocked its head. 'Hey, you know how you guys all have this psychic thing? Does it ever get awkward? Like, they think of you naked awkward?'

There was a pause in which the guy's thoughts accidentally strayed in that direction.

"_STOP THAT_!" she shouted.

"_We can't help it, it's her fault for bringing it up_!" exclaimed Embry.

"_Wrong phrase to use_!" remarked Jacob as something else came into their thoughts.

"_GUYS_!"

Emily laughed as her shape altered yet again. 'This is fun. What else have I always wanted to be... I know!'

She shrivelled this time, and a small, light humming-bird sprang up. It scooted around the place. The wolves tried snapping at it a few times, still able to hear Emily's laughter in their head, thought the second voice had fallen silent. She flew over them a few times, dropping a few 'presents' onto them before disappearing into the forest.

"_I_," began the female wolf. "_Am going to track her down. And then I am going to eat her_."

"_With that taste? Good luck._"

Emily flew quickly through the forest, retaining some of her previous speed. She found a small cottage in which Bella had a small girl. She watched through the windows for a long moment. Rosalie and Emmett were there as well. She went there originally because she wanted to annoy someone else for a while, but after a moment she just didn't have the heart. There was a reason she avoided functional families. They made her feel squishy on the inside, like ice-cream gone soft, and that always made her feel bad.

She flew into the white house again, zipped over Aro's head with every intention of giving him one of her presents as well. However, he managed to shoot his hand out and snag her wing. Evidentially, Edward's speed wore off faster than Emily would have liked.

'Ack! Not the wing, not the wing!' she yelped in her mind, unable to do so out loud.

"There she is," Edward stated, looking at her directly.

Aro looked at the bird. "I thought so. You've found the shape-shifters, then?"

The small bird's form began billowing outwards, bulging in awkward places, so he set her on the ground. After a moment, Emily stood and grinned at him cheerfully. "Yup. I love messing with wolves. They're so… _Manipulable_."

"That's nice," Aro said. "Please put some clothes on."

Esme left the room for a second, came back with a robe, which Emily then put on. "Cheers."

"Something just occurred to me," Edward wondered. "Esme's talent is her heart; she's an extraordinarily nice person. So why don't you become nice when you're around her?"

"Because that's just lame." She shrugged as Esme. "Sorry, but it's true."

"The wolves are coming," Edward said instead of answering her. He looked at Carlisle. "They want a word with you."

"About what?"

Edward's eyes went to Emily.

"Ah."


	17. Before the Empath

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Seventeen**

**Before the Empath**

Aro was slightly amused by the vein beginning to jump in the young, male wolf's forehead. Emily was causing it to do so, through her convoluted logic.

"And, therefore, if you're a wolf, you should like ice-cream!" she finished brightly. It had been about half an hour since they arrived and the conversation had gone downhill almost before it had begun.

"What… But that… I don't understand that at all!" he exclaimed. Leah was beside him, looking as if she wanted to shoot Emily. She had walked in with that expression and it hadn't altered one bit since Emily opened her mouth, apart from the intense confusion that came and went.

"And that is also why we must have a party with ice-cream!"

Jake gaped for a long moment, his mouth opening and shutting for a few moments before he turned to Aro. "Alright, I understand the problem. But why haven't you killed her? Isn't that usually your response to everything? At this point, even I wouldn't mind."

Aro blinked, not allowing the wolf's colloquial manner to affect him. He normally never would have bothered talking to Aro this way, but given the disruption (aka, Emily), he thought it could be forgiven. "Emily is an Empath, meaning that she is able to take on abilities that outmatch even my own."

"And everyone else's," Emily chimed in cheerfully. "Hey, look, a kid! Do you think she wants to party as well?"

Edward stiffened as he turned and saw Bella carrying Nessie towards them. She was still a child, but fast reaching that point where soon she would not be carried anywhere. Edward could read that his daughter would have preferred to walk, but Bella wanted to be able to take her away if need be. Bella let her mental shields drop, revealing that Nessie had wanted, badly, to see the Empath, remarking that everyone else had, but not her. She hadn't complained, just kept asking, calmly stating that the others could protect her if need be. Edward nodded slightly, though he was now aware of Emily's every movement. Empath or no, if she made the slightest movement against his child, she would suffer.

"Oh, stop with the macho-attitude," Emily said to Edward, laughing at him. "I'm not going to attack her. Why would I? She's probably more interesting than the rest of you. And she probably likes ice cream. Hey, kid? You like ice cream?" This last part was called to where Nessie was outside. Rosalie and Emmet came inside just as Bella disappeared from the window and reappeared in the doorway.

"Yes," said Nessie cheerfully, clearly understanding that it was her ticket to inclusion. "I love it."

"Naws, liar," Emily said without a change in tone. "But it's nice for you to try. How about parties, I bet you like them?"

"I think so," the little girl continued, looking at her mother and communicating her wish to be set down through her hands. She was set down and walked towards Emily, Bella no more than a step behind her. Jake was glaring at Emily like he actually did want to rip her limb-from-limb. Aro was watching all of this with some measure of interest. If Emily made the slightest move towards the girl, almost everyone in the room would be on her in an instant.

"That would be interesting, I suppose," muttered Emily. For a moment, Aro didn't understand what she meant. But then he realised that she had tapped into Edward's convenient ability to read minds and was responding to his own thoughts. He glanced at Edward and saw that he was tensing, reading Aro's understanding of what Emily thought would be interesting. Aro frowned, wondering why Emily was doing this. He had arrived at the conclusion that almost everything Emily did had some purpose or another. It was true that a lot of the time it was meaningless entertainment, but still. So why was she deliberately antagonising…

Aro sighed. "Emily, stop playing with them."

Emily giggled, giving Edward a wink. "But it's so much fun! And so incredibly easy! I mean, they're all so emotional, and not the brightest crayons in the box, if you catch my drift." She said this in a whisper, as if the others could somehow not hear her, or understand. She ignored Jacob's furious look and crouched towards Nessie. "Anyway, as I was saying, you like partying? How about dancing?"

"I think so."

"Want to try something cool? It's called the Charleston… Outside would be better, though. In here there are too many distractions." She gave Edward a very obvious smile.

Bella looked at her husband worriedly. He gave a brief, terse nod. She hesitated for another moment, clearly worrying about his agitated state. He deliberately took a breath and tried to use it to calm himself, nodded at her more naturally. Emily cheerfully took Nessie outside and began showing her the dance. "Hey, wolfy, want to come?"

"What? Why would I-" began Jake, frowning.

"Not _you_, stinky."

"She has a point," muttered Emmet softly.

"Her." She pointed at Leah. Leah looked surprised.

"What? Why me?"

"Because you obviously need to learn how to be a lady."

"…" Leah's expression said it all.

"The Charleston isn't exactly a ladylike dance, you know," Rosalie felt compelled to point out.

"It's a start, though." Emily refuted. "Come on, Leah."

Nessie grinned and ran up to Leah, pulling on her arm. This was more difficult to refuse. She gave a helplessly furious look to Jacob, who shrugged, secretly relieved that Emily was going outside. The women went outside, excepting Rosalie. Emmet squeezed her arm and went outside, where he watched the Empath carefully. She seemed harmless. Crazy, but harmless.

While this happened, Carlisle and the other Cullens explained the story to the wolves, free of interference from the one they talked about. They did it because Aro showed no sign of doing so, probably because he was so tired of explaining it over and over again.

"That doesn't make sense," eventually Jacob said. The other two members of his pack were keeping watch outside.

"None of this does," Aro stated, speaking for the first time in a few minutes, depressed. "Why Maya would come back, what she wants, why Emily came to be in the first place, why we haven't heard of her before, or god forbid, others of her kind." Aro's eye twitched for a moment as he visualised a tribe of Emilys. The other vampires ignored this, though Jacob was interested to see that the leader of the Volturi was, somewhat understandably, ruffled by the Empath.

"Not that part, though some explanation for all of that would be welcome as well," Jacob negated. "If that's true, why was she able to run away from you?"

"Maya's allowing it," said a cheerful voice from the doorway. All of them made some movement of surprise, even Aro, which in itself was a shock. "Sorry. Actually, that was a lie. I wanted to see if you'd all jump. You did. Lol."

"How did-" Jacob began. She raised an eyebrow. "Never mind."

"Where's Nessie and Leah?" asked Esme, who had been observing from beside her husband.

There came the sound of childish laughter, then someone screaming, "I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"

"There they are."

They all went outside, Rosalie first, closely followed by Jacob, then Aro. Emmet was looking, dumbfounded, up a tree, and then looking away when someone threw small sticks at him. "STOP LOOKING, DAMN IT!"

"I was just going to ask if you wanted some help!" protested Emmett, holding up his hands.

"Leah?" asked Jacob, frowning slightly as Nessie tried to stop laughing and failed. "Why are you naked up a tree?"

"I…" Leah looked frustrated, probably because she couldn't quite remember. "I don't know."

"I got bored because she wouldn't dance and bit her tail," Emily explained without hesitation.

Leah was clearly tailless.

"I made her go into a wolf first."

"Only I can do that!" Jacob remarked.

"I stole your power."

"But…"

Aro looked at Emily. "I'd like to speak with Maya." Only she heard him, as the others were paying attention to the female werewolf stuck up a tree.

A strange expression came over Emily's face as Jacob and Leah both began shouting at her. Esme tried to speak to them, trying to calm the situation. Aro looked at Emily closely as Jasper stepped in for the first time in the conversation, calming the mood, and as Alice fetched some clothes for the wolf. Her face completely relaxed and her eyes shut. "Maya's not home right now." She began collapsing. Aro hesitated, decided not to catch her, but Emmet, the closest to her, did that anyway. This effectively silenced the speakers.

"Emily?" asked Aro cautiously.

"Wake me when something interesting happens," she muttered before exhaling and falling into a deep sleep. Edward frowned as he looked at her, stepping forward. They waited a moment. He eventually shook his head.

"I can't read anything; she's obviously using Bella's shield."

"That solves part of the problem, I suppose," muttered Carlisle. "I got the impression she didn't sleep."

"Sometimes she does," Aro replied.

There was a long pause. "I am still up here," said Leah warily. "And I don't think I can get down. And I'm naked."

"We noticed," Emmett said without looking at her, carrying Emily. Leah threw another stick at him.

Emily was in the middle of a desert. Someone was pouring water in her mouth. "Wake, little one. It's time for you to arise."

She coughed, spluttered, tried to get more of the cool, beautiful water.

"That's enough for now," said the voice, kind but cruel for taking the water, for Emily felt that she could never get enough of it again. She patted Emily's brow with a damp cloth. "Do you remember your name?"

"I... Em...Emily," gasped Emily.

"Well, Emily, what else do you remember?" the kindly voice asked her.

"Nothing."

"Do you have a family? Friends?"

"Don't know."

"Why are you out here?"

"Not sure."

"And, Emily." The voice looked down at her, blue eyes somehow cold. "Do you know what you are?"

"I am me. I am all I can be."

"A good an answer as any," replied the woman, standing. "Rest for now, Emily. When you wake, we'll talk."

"What's your name?" Emily gasped, needing to know who her rescuer was. They were in a tent, sheltered from sun and wind, and Emily had water. She wasn't yet recovered enough to eat and she knew it, though she was still starving.

The woman turned, scrutinised her for a moment before telling her, seeming to expect Emily to know her, although she didn't.

"Maya. My name is Maya."


	18. The Empath's Life

Discloser: I don't Twilight, or any of its fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Eighteen**

The Empath's Life

Emily was laid on the couch. Renesmee, Alice and Bella had felt bad over leaving her on the floor, so they'd put her there. Nobody else really cared.

"What's she doing?" murmured Aro, looking at her after she was laid there.

"Who? Emily?" asked Carlisle, who was standing next to him.

"Maya. She did this for a reason. She's doing all of this for a reason."

"Just possessing Emily?" asked Carlisle, even quieter, watching Aro intently. "Or perhaps more?"

Aro's lips tightened. "I have been wondering the same thing. So many questions, all without answers."

"I understand that Maya was your teacher, but how did you two drift apart?"

Aro was silent.

"If it's a difficult question…" Now all the others, all nine of the Cullen family, were watching Aro, his eyes drained distantly on Emily, as if he wasn't seeing her, but through her instead.

"Oh, it is," murmured Aro, somewhat surprising them. "But not in the way you think. I can't… quite remember."

There was a beat. "I'm sorry?" asked Carlisle.

"I didn't know because I never thought of it. I can't remember how we parted. I remember one day, as I was a boy, we were on our travels and I… Well, I'm not sure. I remember pain, the other vampires, but I think that's the last time I saw Maya." He was still frowning. "But I never knew, because I never thought of her. Even at the time. It was like the moment I became what I am, I forgot her."

'Well, well, well… You found me?' murmured Emily in the space of her thoughts, where her subconscious and her conscious minds met and collided. 'Why did I never remember that? No, never mind, even I can do that. Making them forget is easy. But what happened after that?'

Maya was silent, instead showing her leading Emily to the nearest village, a small desolate place which always seemed odd. Emily remembered that place, so far away in time, swallowed by history now. It was where she had begun. There was nothing before that. Just her.

'But it was never just me.'

_No._

'What happened?'

_You ran._

Emily paused, thought about that. 'I would only run if I had a good reason.' Maya was silent again. 'Maybe I just got sick of all the mystery… What happened before you picked me up from the desert?'

_Do you really want to know?_

'Yes. I always wondered how I came to be there, what happened. I've tried to find out, but I gave up long ago.'

_Then I'll show you_.

Alice stiffened, her eyes going vague. Edward's head shot towards her. Bella looked at him in concern first, but the others followed, looking at Alice. Her eyes focused and she gave a slow, deliberate sigh.

"Edward, wait a moment," she whispered.

Edward was making an obvious effort to hold himself back. The anger almost rose off his skin as he looked at Aro. "There will be an attack."

"On us?" Carlisle asked sharply.

"On the Denalis."

Emmett turned to Aro, Edward's fury catching. "You distracted us while your friends can move in?"

"I-" began Aro calmly. Before he could finish his sentence, Emmett leapt. Jasper was on the other side of the room, so he couldn't intercept him, and his own anger made it too difficult to dim Emmett's. Edward had a split second to decide whether to intercept him or not, but his own indecision made him hesitate. Carlisle was too far away.

There was a large crack. Aro held Emmett's fist in his hand, not looking ruffled. "You forget yourself, Cullen. I have not fought for a long time and I don't intend to now. Unless you push me."

Emmett gave another roar, not listening to the voiced protests of the others, and tried to hit him again. This time, it was someone else who intercepted him. A smaller hand held him back. Emily was no longer on the couch, nor was she Emily. Blue eyes looked at him from deep within, regarding him with a curious ambivalence.

"Why do you fight your allies?" she asked, surprising him enough to make him step away from both of them.

Aro wasted no time. "Maya, what are you doing with Emily? What is the point of this?"

She sighed as she looked at him, and a weary affection came into her eye. "Finally, you're asking the right questions." With that, she shut her eyes and slipped to the ground. Bella stepped forward, catching her and putting her back on the couch.

Emily had been abandoned for a little while in her own memories, finding a place blocked by another's hand. It was a talent obtained along the way from somebody she had forgotten. It might have been Maya herself, and she just hadn't realised.

_Sorry about the wait_.

'Vampies acting up again?'

_Something like that_. The mess of memories bean to clear. _It's time, Emily, you saw who and what you were before I found you_.

It was another desert village, this one bigger, simultaneously poorer and richer. The ghettoes were some of the worst Emily had seen. But the parade which surrounded the king and his men were some of the most beautiful for their time. Emily watched, not from the dust, but from inside one of the carriages being dragged by people. Even they were dressed in finery.

'What is this?' whispered Emily.

_For thousands of years, there have been vampires. For millions, there have been humans. And for a time which nobody knows, there has been Empaths. We come, one after another, one every thousand years, perhaps even in every world, and on our shoulders are bourn the weight of the world. We can either hold it up, or we can cast it down._

'I've never met another Empath.'

_You don't meet them. You beget them. You give half your power to the seed of a child, and then, when the child is told what they are, you die, and they take the rest of the power. Eighteen years before what you see now, I found the pregnant queen of a tiny Empire and, tired of my life, I halved my power._

'I'm… Royalty?'

_You are the last of whatever royal line there was. I waited, curious to see what the new Empath would be like, and this is what I found. _

Emily looked outside her carriage as the peasants and whores lined up to watch her pass. She revelled in her glory, in the power she possessed. No matter how hard they tried, no matter what they did, they could never be her. Even if they could take her crown, they could never take these curious powers she'd had since she was a child, that a strange woman had told her made her an 'empath'.

Suddenly, her carriage was brought to a halt. She frowned, waited, but after a while the shroud over her carriage was lifted, and a soldier told her, "someone is holding up the carriage, ruler, they want to see you."

For a moment she considered getting angry. But she was in a good mood so, instead, she stood and found her way to the front, where an old, sickly woman knelt before the men.

"Why have you not kicked her out of the way?" asked Emily, looking at them.

"Queen Emmilia," said one of the men, lowering his eyes. "We cannot."

"I am dying," cried the woman. "From a simple wound you could heal with a second! Please, help me!"

Emmilia –why had she thought her name was Emily?- paused, looking over her. It was a pathetic woman, skinny and wrinkled, and ready to die. "Kill her. You'll be doing her a favour."

Nobody moved. Gradually, the woman stood, as the queen looked at her guards, opening her mouth to ask why they were moving. "You shouldn't have said that," the woman said. Before Emmilia could turn and look at her, she struck, not with fists but with a cloud of pain. Emmilia herself had the power and tried to deflect it, but couldn't completely do so. She turned and threw a spear from one of the soldiers, imbuing it with molten lead as she did so. But it was deflected in an instance. They began to battle. They could each do what the other could. All blows were deflected. All powers used. Soon, the people began running, fleeing for their lives. Those who stayed were killed. The village was levelled around them. But Maya hadn't broke even when she'd cast her lot with the unborn queen. She'd only given her a third, and soon the child was defeated.

Emmilia lay, broken and bruised, before the woman. She hadn't been able to see her, not anything but her eyes, like two blue swords piercing her mind. "Who… Are you?" she spat, along with a few spots of blood. The battle had left her dying, or so it seemed. But she would heal, and then she would beat the woman. Nobody would humiliate the queen.

"I'm the one who made a mistake," the other whispered. "But I'll rectify that now. My life can not end yet. I must see this through. But I will not suffer alone. You, Emmilia… Delusions of grandeur can be ended so simply… Emily. You will walk this earth with me, without end or purpose, until you atone for what you've done."

Then she touched Emmilia's head, and everything went away.

"I saw them attacking the Denalis," Alice muttered once they had all settled down.

"Who are they?"

"Vampires. The Volturi. But… They're wearing the cloaks, but they're not Volturi I've seen before. Their first orders are to take out those who pose a threat to the Volturi."

"But the Denali coven don't," Aro said, his eyes tightening, a minuscule movement. "Except perhaps ideologically. I would never order such a thing, for solely that reason. Your family and I have our differences, but I would never order such a thing for so little. It is petty and beneath us."

"That wasn't the only vision I saw," Alice continued, rubbing her head like she wanted to pull the images out. "The second vision was years after. I saw them killing us. The Volturi had grown to absurd numbers. All vampires were either with or against them. We were the last free vampires left. And humans…" She drew off, unable to say what she saw. All the muscles in Edward's face tightened.

"And I?" asked Aro quietly. "Where was I in this vision?"

"I couldn't see you. All I saw was the anarchy."

Emily, not Emmilia, walked through the desert behind Maya. She cooked, cleaned, did everything for the woman. She didn't get paid, and sometimes not even fed. For some reason, she could never attack Maya. But she wanted to. Instead, one day, she ran away.

'You drove me to it, on purpose.'

_Yes_.

'Why?'

_When was the last time you slept?_

Emily, surprised at the change in subject, stopped, thought about it. 'It was…' She drew off. 'Before I met Aro… I can't remember. So why am I sleeping now?'

_That's the question_. Maya's tone was soft.

'Will you tell me the answer?' No answer. 'That's a no… Then tell me this." In Emily's mental world, she suddenly grinned. 'The world is falling to pieces out there, and I'm sleeping? Everything is getting _interesting_!'


	19. Stand, Aro, Our Leader

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Nineteen**

**Stand, Aro, Our Leader**

'One question,' Emily asked, confusion suddenly colouring her mental landscape. 'You said there were Empaths every thousand years. But… it's been longer than that. I've been alive for much longer than that.'

_Do people ever fascinate you_?

'…What?'

_People. How they can be ingenious, or stupid, or beautiful, or hideous. Do you know what happens when you stop people from being people_?

'They get angry?'

_You get two things. The first is that they'll find new and better ways to be ingenious, stupid, beautiful and ugly. The second is that you get tired of it. You become me. And you get sick of seeing the new, better ways of doing things and putting them down_.

'Why did you think you had to? I see all that, you have to when you live so long, or you'd go crazy, and laugh. And annoy people. And laugh _because_ I annoy people.'

_I thought I had to because I could see them leaning towards destruction. I saw that people would destroy themselves, and decided I would stop them_.

'How'd that dictatorship go?'

_Unseen. Unheard. Forgotten. Until I got tired of it all, tired of stopping progress for the sake of stopping destruction. Then I found you, made you run away, thought I could make someone to rule in my footsteps. But, while I waited, I looked around and saw…_

'That people would always lean towards destruction, but never fall?'

_Yes. You saw it too_?

'How could I not?'

_Then I decided that there could be no more Empaths. Not here, at least, not in this world. We stop them from growing. We are there so we can find the strongest people and push them down, because we will always be as strong, stronger. We are there to stop the thing which is destruction and hope and beauty all rolled into one –progress. But we can't. _

'But where does Aro factor into this?'

_The vampires are by far the steadiest and most powerful group of beings on this planet. They are the ones we would normally stop. So, instead, I decided I would train someone to lead them the right way. I did this with the wolves, too, the ones here. And the humans, with many of their leaders. But Aro was the strongest, the most important. _

'Must have been a bitch when he got it wrong, huh?'

_Quite. But we're here now, and he's getting it right again. He's remembering all I taught him. I'll make him remember._

'We'll make him remember.'

In the head of one, two Empaths smiled.

"Because of all this," muttered Edward helplessly. "The world goes to ruin? Because of her?"

"This wasn't supposed to happen," muttered Carlisle. "This was never about the Denalis or the Volturi. It was supposed to be about her."

"That's what we thought," sighed Aro. "Ah, I've been a fool. We've all been fools. Maya… I see now. She needed to aggravate the Volturi enough that they would act without me."

"With Emily?" frowned Emmet.

Aro looked at the other vampire. "Do you doubt that she could irritate a group of vampires enough that they would want to dominate the world?"

Emmett thought about this for a moment. "…True."

"So what are we going to do about it?" asked Bella, worry gripping her eyes. Edward was standing quietly next to her. Renesmee was in his arms, holding onto him.

"We need to warn the Denalis-" began Carlisle.

"We can do nothing," Aro interrupted smoothly. "This is none of your concern. You can do nothing. May I remind you of the talents we, the Volturi, possess; there is nowhere to run, no way to fight. No, there is no 'we'. However, there is me."

Carlisle looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Aro murmured. "That while it's been an interesting… Vacation, I suppose you could call it, it's time for me to return to my duties. Because, while those giving these orders may have forgotten it, _I_ am the leader of the Volturi. _I_ am the one who drew all the talents together to create a world as close to perfect as possible. _I_ am Aro; leader of the Volturi, and it's time I took back control."

Tanya arrived back at her home. It was relatively quiet. Garret had dragged Kate of to look at the Antarctic, why Tanya didn't know. She'd been there and it wasn't that great; just ice and strange animals that didn't even taste that good. Eleazar and Carmen both had gotten a job at some animal shelter so they didn't even have to go hunting –they'd just pick up the dying animals, or the ones that had to be killed due to injuries or severe behavioural issues. They were both there now. It was probably a good thing. Things had been comparatively awkward since the Renesmee incident. No wonder Garret had been able to convince Kate to go walk-about; at the moment, even Tanya wanted to escape.

But things had been getting better lately. There had been less long, days-long silences and more talking. They'd all even gone hunting together a few times, before Kate and Garret had left. Tanya still felt alone, probably because she was now the only one without a mate, but that would subside eventually. Eventually…

Tanya stiffened. Something was wrong. There was someone in her house.

She had a second awareness before she was attacked from two sides by a pair of vampires, a dark-haired woman and a blonde man, both of them with the strength of newborns. She managed to dart to the side, their exuberant speed meaning they crashed into each other, and began running. She saw the dark cloaks, shouted, "I thought it was over, I haven't done anything-"

One of them was in front of her, another behind. They were fast. "You don't need to have done anything."

The woman was behind her. "We're the Volturi: if you're not with us, you're against us-"

"You are not the Volturi, _I_ am the Volturi."

Both of them froze, turned. Tanya did the same. Waiting in her room was Aro. He was looking at the other vampires quizzically, his eyes going from one to the other. "My name is Aro. Do you recognise it?"

Both of them were completely still, silent. Shock was written across their eyes.

"I asked you a question." The words weren't overly sharp, but still contained a threat.

"Yes," the woman said, looking at the other nervously. "We've hard of you. You left the Volturi-"

"I took a small break, and now I'm back. What are your names?"

"Eliza."

"Luigi."

"Well, Eliza and Luigi, tell me what you're doing here."

"Well…" Began the nervous male newborn. Tanya didn't know what was going on, but was wiling to wait to see. "The leaders told us to kill that one. We waited until she was alone."

"Who?"

"…What?"

"Who told you to come here?"

"Oh, uh, Heidi and Felix."

"I see." Aro's tone increased in intensity, though it looked like he was still perfectly calm on the outside. "Heidi and Felix are not your leaders. I am. And it's entirely up to me whether you live or die, or kill another vampire. Understood?"

Numbly, the newborns nodded.

"Good. What happened to the others? Tell me everything you can think of."

"Um… They were upset because a vampire called Marcus left. I remember Jane and Alec being mentioned, too," the girl said, brushing hair from her face. "They said more, but I can't remember the rest of their names. The others are supposed to hunt down the ones who run."

"The others?"

"The other newborns. The Volturi are growing. There were twenty of us last time I checked."

"Heidi and Felix," murmured Aro delicately. "It seems I have some work to do."

"You can do it, Aro!"

Aro paused for a moment, emitted what seemed to be a small sigh, before turning. If Tanya didn't know better, she would have said that it sounded exasperated. But that would have been silly. There was a girl sitting in the same room, who Tanya swore hadn't been there a moment ago.

"I thought you were sleeping," Aro said to her.

"Things looked cool so I woke up. And plus I go massive ice cream craving." She looked at Tanya and the newborns and grinned. "Hey, is this a party? Did you throw me a surprise party, Aro?"

"No."

"Aw, you're so sweet." She stood, began walking to the newborns. "Are these your friends?"

"Is she a meal?" asked Luigi, looking at Emily hungrily. She hugged him in greeting, and then Eliza. The question was automatically answered. "Smells…so…bad."

Eliza was too busy not breathing to answer.

"What," asked Tanya, severely confused. "Is going on?"

Aro looked at her. "You just witnessed the attempted take-over of the Volturi. If you excuse me, it's time I made sure the attempt stays just that. It's time I went back to Italy."

"Yay, slutmuffin!" contributed Emily.


	20. The Final Stand

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its associated fictional characters or locations.

**Emily the Empath**

**Chapter Twenty**

**The Final Stand**

"…Can we stop for ice cream?"

"No, we are going to stop world domination."

"And we may need ice cream so we can be cool," nodded Emily. "You know, because ice cream is cool, and because only cool people can be leaders."

"Emily," Aro said, running along North America. "Has it occurred to you that the reason a horde of vampires is trying to take over the world because you annoyed them into doing it?"

"…I guess we can stop when we get to Italy, then," Emily sighed. "And get some gelato." She was silent for a moment. "Mm, gelato." Emily gasped. "Hey, Aro!"

"What now?"

"You know what would be the coolest. Thing. Ever."

"What?"

"An ice cream party!"

"No." He stopped. Emily ran a bit longer before realising and came back for him. "This is the quickest way to Italy."

"What? A boat?"

"Swimming."

"Yay, swimming party!"

Heidi and Felix stood, alone, in the large tower room. There were definite cracks which hadn't been there before _that thing _came there. But it was good. It served as a reminder to Heidi and Felix. This was why they fought. Because Aro couldn't be trusted to lead the Volturi. And because that thing he kept taking with him was so annoying that dominating the world in order to find and crush her in every way possible did not seem too much of an over-reaction.

Someone knocked on the door. It was Giovanna. When they had asked her if she wished to stay with them without Aro, Marcus, Caius, Jane, Alec and a lot of the others, who were still loyal to Aro, she simply said, "I will do what you require."

"Send them in," said Felix majestically. Giovanna opened the door and pulled in ten humans looking nervous and eager, some with more of one emotion and less of the other. They all smelled good. Such a nice change. "Benvenuto. Sapete perche` siete qui?" _Welcome. You all know why you're here?_

They looked at him, nodded.

"Volete diventare vampiri?" _You all want to become vampires_? He smiled.

There was a more enthusiastic round of agreement.

"Perche`?" _Why_? "E` perche` volete di essere piu` forti, piu` veloci, piu` bello?" _Is it because you want to be stronger, faster, more beautiful._ "Volete avere il mondo ai piedi?" _Do you want to have the world at your feet_?

Now there was even greater enthusiasm. Heidi smiled. She liked these ones. They were all male this time, and she how most of them looked at her. She slinked forward. "Volete…" she whispered. _Do you want_… "Avere donne… Per sempre?" _To have women… forever_?

Now all of them looked at her, and there was no mistaking the look in their eyes.

"Allora mi seguite," she whispered, turning to go out of the room. _Well then, follow me_. "Ma." _But_. She stopped. "In questo momento… Voglio uno di solo." _Right now I want… Just the one_.

"Beh, significa," sighed Felix. _Well, this means_... "Dovete decidere fra voi." _You have to decide amongst yourselves_. "Come?" _How_? "Di combattersi." _By fighting each other_. "Alla morta." _To the death_.

"Solo il meglio acceteremo," Heidi said. _We will only accept the best_.

"Anch'io." _As do I_. This was a new voice, which broke the hold Heidi and Felix's hypnotic words had over the humans. They turned and saw, leaning against the door, a figure they hadn't been prepared for. Aro had returned. He looked at the humans, sighed. "Hungry as I am… They will not satisfy my fury. Se siate pocchisimo intelligente, lasciarete." _If you are the slightest bit intelligent, you will leave_. He held open the door. "Se no… State. Ho fame."_ If not… Stay. I'm hungry_.

They all looked at each other uncertainly for a long moment. Then one began walking towards the door. Five more followed. But four of them crossed their arms and looked resolute. Aro decided to ignore them for now. Instead, he looked at a frozen Felix and Heidi. "Well, well, well… I go away for less than a day and find, in my place, impostors on the throne. How did you get rid of the others?"

Suddenly, he appeared behind them, gently touched Felix and Heidi on the necks. They vanished, but he had seen. "Ah, that makes sense… You began raising the newborns before I even left, in secret. And then you used them to defeat everyone who wouldn't accept you or run. Now you plan to hunt them down?" He laughed gently. "You're both old enough to know when you've bitten off too much."

"We defeated you, Aro," Felix said quietly. "All your supporters are gone."

"They left, and will be back. You defeated a few. A few good Volturi who I respected and admired." Aro smiled slightly. "But, for that, you will suffer."

Emily woke when she heard feet clattering past her. The only vampires in the vampy-hole were slutmuffin and her new boyfriend. Aro too, now. Or the humans wouldn't have been able to get away like they were. She sighed and decided to make Aro's job a little easier for once. She stood, wiped their memories, and sent them on their way without any clue why they were there. She sat back down, having a slight headache.

'Maya? Are you in here?'

_I'm always in here._

'You're not making me run after him now?'

_The time for that is long gone_.

Emily felt sad for a moment. 'Ah, but they were good times, weren't they?'

Maya's laugh tinkled through her head. _They were interesting_.

'Never did get that party, though.' She coughed slightly. 'What's wrong with me? Years of being healthy as a horse –healthier, to be honest- and now I feel like I'm coming down with every disease possible.'

_It feels that way_.

Emily was silent for a long moment. In a small voice, almost a whisper inside her head, she asked, 'Maya? What's happening to me?'

_You know what's happening, Emily_.

Aro came out a little while after, dusting his hands. "Giovanna?"

Giovanna smiled at him. "Yes, Aro?"

"Could you clean up in there? I'm afraid it's a little… Messy."

Her smile grew. "Of course."

"But first, I have something to show you." She stood, and he led her into the room. Without warning, he struck. He held on long enough to see that she had obeyed with the intention of becoming a vampire and then finding the others to overthrow the usurpers. The venom began to spread. He let her drop to the ground. After a moment, she began to gasp. "Remember to clean up when you've changed." He left her, wiping his mouth and shutting the doors behind him. He found the four who'd decided to stay behind. They demanded that he turn them, tried to attack Aro. Half an hour later, they were all dead, and he was full for the first time since he met Emily. He went into the reception and found a few newborns waiting for him.

"Where are Heidi and Felix?" one asked him uncertainly. Even to someone who had never seen him, Aro's aura of leadership couldn't be missed.

"They have been taken care of," he answered. "And I have a few questions."

Aro began challenging the newborns, seeing who was suitable for the Volturi and who wasn't. They began coming to the place, as if told to leave while there were humans and return after. Some were so unsuited to their life that he killed them, wondering why they'd been changed in the first place. Some, he sent away, telling the more emotionally sensitive or morally inhibited to go to the Denalis or the Cullens. If Alice wasn't watching, they would be very surprised very soon. Some he simply told to get out and find their own way and, if they were good enough, maybe they could be allowed back later. A few gems he told to stay.

His own people returned as well. Those who had willingly betrayed him, he killed quickly and without being hesitation. Those who had gone along with it, not feeling particularly either way, he banished for a century. Those who had hidden, or who'd been plotting to take down the usurpers, he welcomed, and sent out to gather the rest of the newborns. It would take a while, but it had to be done.

After a while, another figure came to him. "Hello, Aro," greeted Alice calmly.

"Alice," he replied. "Your partner had to remain behind?"

"Yes, to care for your little presents. We've gotten together with the Denalis to try and help them all."

"Remember to warn them what happens if they take the wrong path."

"They don't need warning, after what you did."

"Convey it anyway."

She nodded, looked around. "I also have a message. From Carlisle."

"Go on."

"He says he agrees with your new measures, and thinks your reign will improve." She smiled slightly. "He didn't tell me to say this, but he's proud of you."

"That's good."

"Have you seen Emily?"

"Happily, no. I don't doubt that she'll pop up again. Although I'm afraid I've killed her main source of entertainment… perhaps letting Heidi live would have been a better punishment after all…"

"Maybe," Alice said. She and Aro said their goodbyes to each other and she left.

"Emily?"

Emily woke up. She tuned over, saw Alice leaning over her with concern in her eyes. "Alice!" She hugged the vampire violently.

"Ack… Smell…" Alice stopped, hugged her back. "Actually… Your smell is fading. You don't look so good either…"

"That'd be right," Emily said, withdrawing but holding onto Alice's arms. "How's Aro? I'm presuming that's where you went."

"Yeah, he's fine, it's all getting sorted out." She looked around. "Emily, what are you doing sleeping under a tree? The Volturi entrance is right over there. Since you don't smell as bad, someone might kill you."

Emily shook her head. "I can take care of myself."

Alice looked at her closely. "Are you sure?"

The Empath nodded. "Alice… Can I say something? Before you go, I mean? Because I need to be right here right now. And you need to leave in a second, you know you do. But I just want to say… Thanks."

Alice shook her head. "For what?"

"I found you and pulled you out of that dark place you were in, just after you changed, because I wanted your gift. I was selfish. And lonely. But you… You saw that and still became my friend. I liked you. You could stand me. You were a friend to me, and even in my long life, I don't have that many. So thanks for being the only and best friend I've had in years." She hugged Alice all the tighter.

"Emily, why are you saying this?" Alice asked, frowning.

Emily let her go. "You need to get going now. Go, help the newborns." Alice stayed for a little longer but eventually did what Emily asked and left.

She knew what would happen. Emily knew she knew. They'd said their goodbyes. Alice felt strangely peaceful. There was sadness, but peace too.

"Goodbye, Emily," she murmured as she walked away.

Gradually, the Volturi were returning to normal. A better normal than there had been before. Jane and Alec returned. Marcus and Caius too. Finally, Aro decided to go walking around the city, see what he could find. He followed the same route that he had when he first met Emily, but he found nothing. He supposed she'd gone her own way. He was about to return when he heard a voice say, "hey. Not going to go without saying goodbye, are you?"

He turned. "I was wondering when you'd show." He did a double take of Emily. She was standing, but it was clearly with a great personal expense. "What's happened to you?"

She blinked, and it wasn't Emily talking to him any more. "Aro. Ah, Aro, my pride and joy. Rule them, will you? Because it's time for me to go, and go for good this time."

Aro looked at her. "Maya…"

"Let me tell you something, Aro. In every universe there is an Empath. In every single one. But not this one. From now on, there will be no more Empaths."

"What are you saying? Maya!" She blinked and Emily was back.

"She's saying that we're dying, Aro. Both of us, forever."

Aro was silent for a long, long time. "Do you want to die?" He finally asked.

"Maya is tired. We've both been walking a long, long…" She swallowed. "…Long time. We've seen the ugly, the despair, the rot. We've seen the beauty." She smiled. "Oh, the beauty… Yes, there's so much of that too. But now it's time. Because, the thing is, Aro… I could go on living for all of eternity and the world would still be big and small and ugly and beautiful all at the same time. But I keep sleeping. My body is telling me it's time to stop." She laughed, but there was something which quivered in the sound. "I thought it was Maya at first, then I thought it was you, Aro. But it's not any of those things. It's me. I'm dying."

Aro watched Emily closely. He could almost see the life ebbing away from her. "Maya is the reason I am here. She wanted someone to take over, didn't she?"

Emily nodded, the effort it took her obvious.

"So she could die like this."

"Yes."

"Well… Maya. I wish you well. Whatever is next, I hope it's enough for you. And Emily…" He sighed. "Please, if there is a God, do not annoy him so much he gives up on creation."

At this, Emily smiled. "Go home, Aro. It's been fun, though."

It was a physical struggle for Aro to say his next words because of a sudden rise in emotion. The emotion wasn't despair. It was incredulity. "Yes, I suppose it has been. Goodbye, Emily. Goodbye, Empaths."

"Goodbye, Aro, one and only leader of the Volturi."

With that, they parted. Aro watched Emily stumble down the road for a bit before descending into the underground system.

The world rolled around Emily. It felt like that one time during the sixties where she'd tried a strange drug that was actually strong enough to affect her. As she blinked, she began to see the dead around her. Maya had been blocking them for a long time. But she couldn't now. Either she'd grown weaker, or they stronger, or both. She only realised she'd fallen when she felt the impact of hard road on her face.

A tear slipped down the Empath's cheek. "Is there anything after, Maya?"

_I don't know. I never went. I suppose we'll both find out now._ Maya sighed. _And, in the morning, when they wake and walk the streets and go about their little, human lives, or their vampire lives, they will not find a body. We will have never existed. And that is how it should have always been._

Emily coughed a laugh. "I'm never going to get that party, am I?"

_I'm afraid not, Emily. I'm afraid not_.

Emily sighed. "No."

…_No?_

"I don't want this. I don't want to die. You do, but I don't. You said that every universe has an Empath. I'm not going to die, Maya. I'm going to get a new body in a new universe. But I'll miss you."

The world became like a broken mirror, every shard reflecting one another to create endless reflections.

"And then I'll have my damn party."

Maya laughed.

**Author's Note:**

**And so ends Emily the Empath: Twilight. Remember, I'm always open to reviews, but please try not to spoil the ending for people who read the reviews before the story. The next 'Emily the Empath', whichever fictional universe it's in, will start in at least a month, perhaps more, but keep your eye out. If you have any preferences, review or PM them to me and I'll see what I can do. (No, it won't be the same storyline in each) Remember to keep subscribed for updates on my other stories, actual short stories and novels that I'm working on. You can find me on twitter at /#!/AngelaDonlan and on Youtube by searching for Pangie93. **

**Thanks for reading,**

**-Angela (Pangie)**


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